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/ 

Ueit^Booft Series in lEDucation 

Edited by PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. 






PRINCIPLES 

OF 

SECONDARY EDUCATION 



TEXT-BOOK SERIES IN EDUCATION 



THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

By Paul Monroe, Ph.D., Teachers College, Columbia University. 

THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

By Ernest N. Henderson, Ph.D., Adelphi College. 

STATE AND COUNTY EDUCATIONAL REORGANIZATION 
By Ellwood P. Cubberley, Ph.D., Leland Stanford Junior Uni- 
versity. 

PRINCIPLES OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 
By a number of Specialists, 

TO BE ISSUED 

PRINCIPLES OF STATE AND COUNTY SCHOOL ADMIN- 
ISTRATION 
By Ellwood P. Cubberley, Ph.D., Leland Stanford Junior 
University, and Edward C. Elliott, Ph.D., University of 
Wisconsin. 

PRINCIPLES OF CITY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

By Ellwood P. Cubberley, Ph.D., and Edward C. Elliott, Ph.D. 

HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 
By Paul Monroe, Ph.D. 



SOURCE BOOK SERIES IN EDUCATION 



A SOURCE BOOK IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION FOR 
THE GREEK AND ROMAN PERIODS 
By Paul Monroe, Ph.D., Teachers College, Columbia University. 

TO BE ISSUED 

A SOURCE BOOK IN STATE AND COUNTY SCHOOL 
ADMINISTRATION 
By Ellwood P. Cubberley, Ph.D., and Edward C. Elliott, Ph.D. 

A SOURCE BOOK IN CITY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 
By Ellwood P. Cubberley, Ph.D., and Edward C. Elliott, Ph.D. 

A SOURCE BOOK IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN 
THE UNITED STATES 
By Paul Monroe, Ph.D. 



PRINCIPLES 



OF 

* SECONDARY EDUCATION 



TFritten by a Number of Specialists 



EDITED BY 

PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION, TEACHERS COLLEGE 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1914 

All rights reserved 



4 






Copyright, 1914, 

By the macmillan company. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1914. 



P^/A^a 



Norhjooli 5ltesg 

J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



OCT 29 1914 

^Cl,A387265 



PREFACE 

The scope of secondary education is now so broad, its 
purpose and aim are so diversified, tiiat no one specialist can 
aspire to be accepted as an authority in the entire field. 
The content of secondary education is so diverse, methods of 
instruction and of administration are so varied, that no one 
practitioner can hope to present views acceptable to all en- 
gaged in the field. When unity of views or of practice does 
not exist, it is impossible to express a unified philosophy or 
to formulate a procedure universally valid. Under such cir- 
cumstances, it seems best to prepare the prospective teacher 
or administrator for his work by giving him the conclusions 
representing the best thought and practice in this entire field. 
Especially is this procedure advantageous if, as in the case 
of this volume, the specialists writing have a broad acquaint- 
ance with present practices, intelligent views and wide sym- 
pathies in the whole field of education, and also a tolerance 
of innovation justified by experience. 

The insight which results from the consideration of views 
of many specialists, thus animated by a common purpose and 
possessing a wide experience in our secondary schools, is 
superior to the unity which may come from the views of one 
man no matter what his qualifications. Moreover, the prin- 
ciples thus derived will be much more representative of 
actual conditions, and hence will offer a more adequate 
preparation for the novice. 

Several of the chapters of this volume are taken wholly or 
in part from the Cyclopedia of Education. The remaining 
chapters are prepared for this volume alone. The author of 
any chapter has no responsibility for the views expressed in 



vi Preface 

any other; nor is the editor necessarily in sympathy with the 

views expressed. At various points there may be conflict 

between the views advanced by the various writers. The 

unity of the volume is to be found in a common purpose, a 

sympathetic and tolerant attitude, and the experience upon 

which the views of each specialist are based. 

The purpose of this volume is to furnish the student a 

body of fact and opinion that through study and discussion he 

may acquire some knowledge of the entire field of secondary 

education, its purposes and its problems. 

THE EDITOR. 



CONTRIBUTORS 

Chapter I. Meaning and Scope of Secondary Education. "^ 
The Editor. 

Chapter II. Historic Sketch of Secondary Education. 
The Editor. 

Chapter III. European Systems of Secondary Schools. 
Frederic E. Farrington, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Edu- 
cation, Teachers College, Columbia University. 

Chapter IV. The High School Systems of the United 

States. 

State Systeitis of High Schools : 

EUwood P. Cubberley, Ph.D., Professor of Educational 
Administration, Leland Stanford Junior University, 
Stanford University, Cal. 

Rural High Schools : 

Edwin R. Snyder, Ph.D., State Normal School, San 
Jose, Cal. 

Maintenaiue and Support : 

Ellwood P. Cubberley, Ph.D. 

Inspection and Accrediting of School : 

W. Scott Thomas, University of California, Berkeley, Cal. 

Chapter V. Organization of the High School. 

High School Administration : 

W. D. Lewis, Principal, William Penn High School for 
Girls, Philadelphia, Pa. 



viii Contributors 

The Curriculum : 

David Snedden, Ph.D., Commissioner of Education, State 
of Massachusetts. 

The Elective Systejn : \ 

David Snedden, Ph.D. 

The Six -Year Course of Study : 
David Snedden, Ph.D. 

Chapter VI. The Private Secondary School. 

James G. Crosswell, Head Master, The Brearley School, 

New York City. 

Chapter VII. Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence. 

Guy Montrose "Whipple, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Edu- 
cational Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

Chapter VIII. Moral Education in the High School. 

Edward 0. Sisson, Ph.D , Commissioner of Education, 
Boise, Idaho. 

Chapter IX. The Vernacular. 

English Literature : 

Franklin T. Baker, Ph.D., Professor of English Language 
and Literature, Teachers College, Columbia Uni- 
versity. 

George P. Krapp, Ph.D., Professor of English, Columbia 
University. 

Compositioji : 

Franklin T. Baker, Ph.D. 

Oral Speech : 

Erastus Palmer, A.M., Professor of Public Speaking, Col- 
lege of the City of New York. 

Chapter X. The Classical Languages and Literatures. 

Latin : 

Gonzalez Lodge, Ph.D., Professor of Latin and Greek, 
Teachers College, Columbia University. 



Contributors ix 

Greek : 

Thomas D. Goodell, Ph.D., Professor of Greek, Yale Uni- 
versity, New Haven, Conn. 

Chapter XI. Modern Languages. 

Elijah William Bagster-CoUins, A.M., Associate Professor 
of German, Teachers College, Columbia University, 

Chapter XII. The Natural Sciences. 

George R. Twiss, B.Sc, State High School Inspector, and 
Professor of the Principles and Practice of Secondary 
Education, Ohio State University. 

Chapter XIII. Mathematics. 

David Eugene Smith, Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics, 

Teachers College, Columbia University. 

Chapter XIV. The Social Sciences. 
History : 

Henry E. Bourne, Ph.D., Professor of History, Western 
Reserve University. 

Civics : 

James Sullivan, Ph.D., Principal of Boys' High School, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Economics : , 

Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D., Professor of Political Econ- 
* omy, Columbia University. 

Chapter XV, The Fine Arts and Music. 
Art in Education : 

John Dewey, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Columbia 
University. 

Methods of Teaching Art ; Design : 

Arthur Wesley Dow, Professor of Fine Arts, Teachers 
College, Columbia University. 

Music : 

Charles H. Farnsworth, Associate Professor of Music, 
Teachers College, Columbia University, 



X Contributors 

Chapter XVI. The Household Arts. 

Ann Gilchrist Strong, Professor of Household Economics, 
University of Cincinnati. 

Chapter XVII. Vocational Education, 

Industrial Edtication : 

Charles R. Richards, S.B., Director Cooper Union for the 
Advancement of Science and Art. 

Commercial Education : 

Joseph H. Johnson, D.C.S., Dean of School of Commerce, 

New York City. 

Agricultural Education : 

Clarence H. Robison, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Nor- 
mal School, Montclair, -N. J. 

Chapter XVIII. Hygiene and Physical Education. 

Thomas A. Storey, M.D., Professor of Physical Education, 

College of the City of New York. 
George R. Meylan, M.D., Assistant Professor of Physical 

Education, Columbia University. 

Chapter XIX. Athletics. 

Clark W. Hetherington, A.B., Professor of Physical Educa- 
tion, and Director of Athletics, University of Missouri. 

Chapter XX. Social Aspects of High School Education. 
Clarence A. Perry, Ph.D., Division of Recreation, Russell 
Sage Foundation. 

Chapter XXI. Reorganization of Secondary Education. 
David Snedden, Ph.D. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION: MEANING AND SCOPE OF SECONDARY 
EDUCATION 

PAGE 

FUNDAMENTAL IMPORTANCE OF THE SECONDARY 

SCHOOL I 

NO^AGREEMENT AS TO SCOPE OR MEANING OF SEC- 
ONDARY EDUCATION I 

Reasons for this Diversity 2 

SECONDARY EDUCATION DETERMINED BY THE NATURE 

OF THE PROCESS: TRAINING vs. INSTRUCTION . 3 

SECONDARY EDUCATION BASED UPON SUBJECT MATTER 4 

DISTINCTION BASED UPON PROFESSIONAL PREPARA- 
TION 5 

SECONDARY EDUCATION AS A CLASS DISTINCTION. . 6 

SECONDARY EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL SE- 
LECTION 7 

SECONDARY EDUCATION BASED ON PHYSIOLOGICAL AND 

PSYCHOLOGICAL AGE 9 

SECONDARY EDUCATION DETERMINED BY THE STU- 
DENT'S INTERESTS AND ABILITIES .... 10 

THE PRESENT IS A COMBINATION OF ALL THESE 

FACTORS II 

SECONDARY EDUCATION AS A PREPARATION FOR SO- 
CIAL SERVICE AND A TRAINING IN EFFICIENCY . 14 



CHAPTER n 
HISTORIC SKETCH OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 

ORIGIN OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ELEMENTARY 

AND SECONDARY EDUCATION .... 16 

Origin of the Practical Distinction 16 

Origin of the Theoretical Distinction . . . . . .19 



xii Contents 

PAGE 

THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF GREECE . . . . 22 

The Philosophical Schools 22 

The Rhetorical Schools 22 

THE ROMAN SECONDARY SCHOOL 24 

The Grammar School 25 

The Curriculum 25 

The Roman Contribution to Method 27 

THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 29 

Types and Extent of these Schools 30 

Free Schools and Endowments 31 

The Curriculum 33 

Method 34 

THE SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THE RENAISSANCE-REF- 
ORMATION PERIOD. THE LATIN GRAMMAR SCHOOL 36 

The Establisliment of Schools 37 

Number and Type of Schools 38 

Curriculum of the Latin Grammar Schools 40 

Method of the Grammar Schools 42 

THE VARIANT TYPE. THE REALISTIC SCHOOL ... 44 

Organization of the New Type of Education .... 45 

The English Academies . 46 

The German Realschulen . . . . . . . -47 

Influence on the Curriculum . .49 

Influence on Method 50 

THE LATIN GRAMMAR SCHOOL IN AMERICA ... 51 

Curriculum 53 

THE ACADEMY IN AMERICA 54 

Curriculum and Method 57 

THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL 60 

Origin 61 

Development of the High School System 64 

CHAPTER III 
SECONDARY EDUCATION IN EUROPE 

FRANCE 

POSITION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION ABROAD . . 71 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS 72 

THE SYSTEM 74 

Centralization of Control 74 

Secondary Education is nowhere compulsory in France . . 74 

Types of Schools 75 



Contents xiii 

PAGE 

Unrest in Secondary Education -75 

Primary and Secondary Schools Defined 76 

Characteristics of the Course 78 

Baccalaureate Degree 85 

School Population 87 

Boarding Schools 87 

Teaching Force ' . . .88 

Salaries 91 

School Fees 93 

Budget 93 

EDUCATION OF GIRLS 94 

Organization 95 

Program of Studies 96 

School Population 98 

Academic Distinctions 99 

Standards of Teachers 99 

General Characteristics 100 

GERMANY 

SOCIAL BACKGROUND loi 

EDUCATIONAL CONTROL 102 

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS ..... 105 

BOYS' HIGHER SCHOOLS 108 

Gjannasium 108 

Realgymnasium 109 

Oberrealschule no 

Number of Schools iii 

Fees 112 

EARLY SPECIALIZATION DEFERRED 112 

Reform Plan Schools 113 

EDUCATION OF GIRLS. TYPES OF SCHOOLS . .115 

Reorganization of Girls' Schools 116 

Program of Studies 118 

TRAINING OF TEACHERS 120 

Salaries 121 

ENGLAND 

ENGLISH AND CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS CONTRASTED 122 

"PUBLIC" SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC LIFE 123 

Classical Influence 125 

Organization 126 

Programs of F+udies 127 



xiv Contents 

PAGE 

Training for Leadership 128 

School Life 129 

Characteristics of the Public Schools . . . . . .130 

PREPARATORY SCHOOLS 130 

OTHER TYPES OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS . . . .131 
EFFECTS OF THE EDUCATION ACT OF 1899 . . .132 

SECONDARY SCHOOL DEFINED 134 

REGULATIONS OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION . . .135 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR FREE EDUCATION . . .136 

Present Conditions . . . .. .. . -137 

PROGRAM OF STUDIES 138 

COMPARATIVE FIGURES FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL POPU- 
LATION .140 

CHAPTER IV 
THE HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEMS OF THE UNITED STATES 

STATE SYSTEMS 146 

Legal Provisions . .146 

"^ The General Type . . . 146 

Organization of Control . . . 148 

Rtiral High Schools 149 

Curriculum . . .. ' . 150 

Statistical Summary -151 

MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT .154 

Stages in Development 155 

Types of Highest Development 158 

Basis of Apportionment 160 

INSPECTION AND ACCREDITING OF SCHOOLS . ' . .161 

CHAPTER V 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HIGH SCHOOL 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE HIGH SCHOOL DETER- 
MINES ITS EFFICIENCY . . . . . . .174 

The Principal is the Chief Factor in the Administration . -174 
Full Support of the Faculty Necessary for the Best Results . 175 

THE PROBLEM OF ADMINISTRATION 175 

The Course of Study 175 

THE DAILY ROSTER FOR PROMOTION BY SUBJECT . 177 

Data Necessary as a Working Basis 178 

Non-conflicting Term Units are Necessary ..... 180 



Contents xix 

PAGE 

Intellectual Initiative . 329 

Personal Ideals 330 

Vocation 331 

Effect upon the Curriculum 333 

Vocational Gtddance 333 

. The Zest of Life . 334 

Mutual Relations of the Sexes ....... 336 

Honor and Ideals -336 

A Gap in the Curriculum . 337 

WAYS AND MEANS . 338 

School Life 338 

School Government 339 

School Work 341 

Studies . . i 342 

Moral Values 343 

The Classics .......... 343 

Heroes 344 

The New Order 345 

Moral Idealism . . . . . . . . . . 346 

RELIGION 347 

The Secular School 347 

Reaction . . 348 

The Letter and the Spirit 349 

Means 350 

THE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER 350 

Limitation by Conditions 350 

Remedies 351 

CHAPTER IX 

THE VERNACULAR 

THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE . . . .356 

ENGLISH LITERATURE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS . .357 

Literary Appreciation . 358 

• Study of the Vocabulary 358 

The Literary Language 359 

The Philological Method 360 

Technique and Structure 361 

Moral and Cultural Value 362 

Grading the Material 363 

THE TEACHER AS AN INTERPRETER OF LITERATURE . 363 

COMPOSITION 373 

The Teaching of Composition 374 



XX Contents 



PAGE 



TRAINING IN ORAL SPEECH 379 

COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS IN ENGLISH . 382 

CHAPTER X 

THE CLASSICAL LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 

LATIN 

PLACE IN THE CURRICULUM 387 

THE VALUE OF LATIN 387 

METHODS OF TEACHING . 389 

Difficulties of the Student 390 

The Introductory Work ; the Customary Method . . . 391 

The Oral or Direct Method 395 

Pronunciation 396 

The Later Reading 398 

Transition to Caesar ......... 398 

Cicero . . . . . . - . . . . , 401 

Ovid 403 

Vergil 403 

Other Selections .......... 405 

GREEK 

PURPOSE AND VALUE . .406 

The Approach to the Hellenic Spirit 407 

METHOD FOR BEGINNERS 408 

Pronunciation 409 

Oral Methods 410 

Reading 411 

Minor Principles of Method 413 

PLACE IN SCHOOLS 415 

VISUAL AIDS 

LATIN AND GREEK 420 

CHAPTER XI 

MODERN LANGUAGES 

PURPOSE OF STUDY OF MODERN LANGUAGE . . .424 

METHOD 424 

Pronunciation 424 

Oral Practice 425 

Grammar 427 

Written Work 428 

Reading 429 



Contents xxi 

PAGE 

RESULTS OF SCHOOL WORK 431 

PLACE OF MODERN LANGUAGES IN THE CURRICULUM 431 

United States 432 

In Colleges 432 

College Entrance Requirements 433 

Reports on the Curriculum Requirements and Methods . . . 433 

Distribution of Pupils 435 

Germany 436 

Method 437 

France 439 

England 442 

CHAPTER XII 

THE NATURAL SCIENCES 

EDUCATIONAL FUNCTIONS AND VALUES OF THE 
SCIENCES 

WHAT SCIENTIFIC STUDY SHOULD DO FOR THE PUPILS 446 

Specific Habits 448 

The Law of Habit Formation 449 

Application of the Law of Association in Teaching . . . 450 

Scientific Information 45° 

The Choice of Subject Matter 450 

Criteria for the Choice of Subject Matter . . . . -451 
The Mastery of Content . . . . . . . -452 

Inspiration and Scientific Ideals 453 

Mental Discipline 454 

Applying the Principles of Transfer 455 

How Concepts of Method are built up 456 

Precepts for the Conduct of Transferable Training . . -457 

Developing Powers of Interpretation 458 

THE TECHNIQUE OF INSTRUCTION IN THE SCIENCES 

CURRENT METHODS 459 

The Problem as the Center of Unification 459 

THE CLASS CONFERENCE 460 

THE FUNCTION OF THE LABORATORY 462 

Ntmiber of Laboratory Exercises per Year 464 

Size of Laboratory Divisions 464 

Double Periods 465 

Form of Notes • 465 

Inspection of Notes by the Teacher 466 



xxii Contents 

PAGE 

LECTURE DEMONSTRATIONS 467 

FIELD OBSERVATION 467 

REVIEWS 470 

The Topical Recitation 471 

Written Reviews 472 

THE SCIENCES AND THE CURRICULUM 

COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS 473 

THE SCIENCE SUBJECTS 475 

GEOGRAPHY 

GEOGRAPHIC CONTROLS 476 

BEGIN WITH LOCAL PROBLEMS 477 . 

TEXTBOOKS 479 

REPORTS OF NATIONAL COMMITTEES, BOOKS, AND 

MAGAZINE ARTICLES 480 

PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 482 

The Geographic Cycle . . . 482 

Physiographic Controls 483 

PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION AND ORDER . .483 

FIELD WORK, LABORATORY WORK, AND EQUIPMENT . 484 

ORDER OF TOPICS 485 

BIOLOGY 

BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 486 

POINTS OF VIEW FROM BIOLOGICAL STUDY . .486 

PRINCIPLES TO BE OBSERVED IN A BIOLOGICAL COURSE 488 
GENERAL METHOD IN BIOLOGICAL STUDY . . . .493 

SPECIAL METHODS 493 

CORRELATION OF BOTANY, ZOOLOGY, AND PHYSIOLOGY 494 

PHYSICS 

COMMON-SENSE NOTIONS AND PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES 495 

Intuitions and the Facts of Everyday Life as Starting Points 496 

Some Intuitive Notions Described 498 

The Question of Tyndall's Boys 500 

ECONOMY OF TIME AND EFFORT 503 

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS 504 

SYLLABI -505 

LABORATORY WORK 505 

THE PROGRESSIVE PROGRAM 506 

CHEMISTRY 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS ....... 508 

HOW TO BEGIN • • 509 



Contents xxiii 

PAGE 

HOW TO USE THE TEXTBOOK 512 

THE CONTENT OF CHEMISTRY 513 

Chemical Laws 515 

Type Reactions 516 

Practical Applications 517 

THE TEACHER 

PERSONALITY 519 

TRAINING 519 

PROFESSIONAL SPIRIT 521 

CHAPTER XIII 

MATHEMATICS 

NATURE AND USE OF THE SUBJECT 529 

Reasons for its Study 530 

Branches of the Subject . . . 530 

Range of Secondary Mathematics 531 

ALGEBRA . 531 

General Nature of the Subject 531 

Reasons for Studying Algebra 532 

Present Status in the Curriculum 534 

In European Schools 536 

GEOMETRY . . . . .536 

Reasons for Studying Geometry 537 

Present Status of the Teaching of Geometry .... 538 

Reforms and Improvements 539 

ALGEBRA AND GEOMETRY IN THE GRAMMAR GRADES . 541 

College Entrance Requirements in Mathematics .... 544 

SPECIAL VISUAL AIDS TO TEACHING MATHEMATICS . 546 

CHAPTER XIV 

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 

HISTORY 

NATURE OF HISTORY 549 

MATERIALS OF HISTORY 550 

PROBLEMS OF TEACHING HISTORY 551 

THE CHOICE OF MATERIALS. ORGANIZATION OF THE 

COURSE OF STUDY 552 

Growth of History in College and School Curricula . . . 553 
Report of the Committee of Ten 554 



xxiv Contents 

PAGE 

The Committee of Seven 555 

Recent Modifications 557 

Modification of Course in New Types of Schools .... 558 

European Courses of Study and Programs 558 

METHODS OF TEACHING 560 

VISUAL AIDS TO TEACHING HISTORY 564 

CIVICS 

THE TERM CIVICS 565 

INTRODUCTION INTO THE SCHOOLS 565 

PRESENT STATUS 567 

METHODS OF TEACHING CIVICS 569 

ECONOMICS 

ECONOMICS IN THE SCHOOLS 573 

CHAPTER XV 
FINE ARTS AND MUSIC 

ART IN EDUCATION 578 

Classification of the Arts 578 

Principles underljdng Art in Education 579 

Arts are Essentials in Education ...... 580 

Expression precedes Appreciation ...... 580 

Social Activities furnish the Starting Point . . . . . 581 

Artistic Expression natural to Children . . . . .581 

Literature the most General Art for School Purposes . . . 582 

METHODS OF TEACHING ART 582 

The Two Methods 583 

The Academic Method 583 

The Structural Method ........ 585 

The Two Methods in the Schools 587 

DESIGN AS THE SUBJECT RELATING FINE ARTS TO 

PRACTICAL ARTS 587 

Industrial Design 588 

Design in the Fine Arts 589 

Relation of Design to the Arts of Representation .... 591 

Place of Design in Education 592 

Present School Conditions 592 

MUSIC TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLS .594 

Recent Tendencies towards a Broader Use and Appreciation of 

Music in the School 595 

Instrumental Music . . . . . . . . -595 

Singing ........... 596 



Contents 



XXV 



Methods in School Music 

Interpretation 
Structure 
Key . 
Interval 
Rhythm 

Present Procedure 
New Tendencies 



597 
598 
599 
6oo 
6oi 
6o2 
6o2 
603 



CHAPTER XVI 

HOUSEHOLD ARTS 

PRACTICAL ARTS IN EARLY EDUCATION . . . .608 
BROAD CONTENT OF HOUSEHOLD ARTS . . . .609 

The Purpose of the Household Arts 610 

SCHOOL WORK SHOULD CONNECT CLOSELY WITH LIFE 611 

CLOTHING AND HYGIENE 612 

FOOD AND NUTRITION 613 

Technical Skill to be Gained 614 

Scientific Knowledge . 615 

Waste 615 

HOUSING CONDITIONS, HOUSE PLANNING, AND HOME 

KEEPING 616 

Moral and Economic Values of Such Instruction . . . .617 

EQUIPMENT 618 

Elimination of the Artificial 619 

Value and Results of Training in Housekeeping .... 619 

EXHIBITIONS 620 

TEACHERS 621 

THE HOME IDEA MUST BE PRESERVED .623 

VOCATIONAL ASPECT OF HOUSEHOLD ARTS . .624 

The Trade School 624 

The Girls' Technical High School 626 

The Household Arts in the Academic High School . . . 629 
HOUSEHOLD ARTS IN SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED STATES 632 

Massachusetts 632 

New York 633 

Ohio 634 

Iowa 63s 

Indiana 636 

Wisconsin 636 

Federal Subsidies 637 



xxvi Contents 

CHAPTER XVII 

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

PAGE 

SCOPE OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 641 

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 642 

General Definition 642 

Origin of the Present Problem 643 

Factors in the Problem 644 

European Experience . 645 

United States 646 

Evening Schools . . . . . . . • , ■ -647 

Technical Schools 648 

Manual Training . 648 

Trade Schools .......... 649 

Preparatory Trade Schools 651 

Part-time and Cooperative Plan . 652 

Apprenticeship and Corporation Schools . . . . . . 654 

Secondary Technical Schools 655 

Technical High Schools . . . . . , . . 655 

Legislation in the United States ....... 656 

MANUAL TRAINING . . .658 

Educational Value. Underlying Theory . . . . . 658 

Content of Course 660 

Place of Manual Training in the Various National Systems . 660 

Industrial Education and Manual Training 662 

COMMERCIAL EDUCATION 

ORIGIN AND NEED OF COMMERCIAL EDUCATION . . 663 

Commercial Education in the Public High School . . . 664 

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTEREST IN AGRICULTURAL 

EDUCATION 671 

AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS .672 

Agricultural High Schools 673 

THE PRESENT PROBLEM .678 

CHAPTER XVIII 
HYGIENE AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

HYGIENE 68s 

PERSONAL HYGIENE ......... 685 

The Scope of Personal Hygiene . . . . . 687 



Contents xxvii 

PAGE 

TEACHING OF HYGIENE 688 

Instruction in Hygiene in the Schools 689 

Scope of a Course in Hygiene 690 

Methods of Instruction in Hygiene 692 

The Teaching of Hygiene in the High School . . . .692 

Legal Requirements . 694 

SCHOOL HYGIENE 694 

Hygiene of the School Child . . 695 

Hygiene of Instruction 696 

The Construction and Sanitation of the Schoolhouse . . . 696 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION 698 

Early Conceptions 698 

Modern Views 699 

Forms of Exercise 700 

G3niinastics and Athletics 700 

Educative Value 701 

In Schools 703 

Gymnastics for Girls . . . 704 

CHAPTER XIX 

ATHLETICS 

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF ATHLETICS 709 

CREATIVE FORCES IN ATHLETICS 711 

The Contestant's Incentives 711 

The Spectator's Incentives 714 

EVILS OF ATHLETICS 716 

CONTROL OF ATHLETICS 720 

ATHLETICS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 724 

Stages of Development 724 

Organized Athletics . . . 725 

Rules of EUgibiUty 725 

Safeguards . . 726 

Events 727 

Summary of Values 727 

Summary of Effects upon the School 727 

Athletic Courtesy 728 

CHAPTER XX 
SOCIAL ASPECTS OF HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION 

THE SOCIAL VIEWPOINT . 732 

INTERNAL VIEWPOINT • • • • 733 

SOCIALIZED METHODS , . . .735 



xxviii Contejtts 

PAGE 

SOCIAL ELEMENT IN ORGANIZATION 736 

HIGH SCHOOL EXTENSION 738 

SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES DEMANDED BY SOCIETY . 739 

CONTENT OF INSTRUCTION 734 

CHAPTER XXI 

THE REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 

THE FORCES PRODUCING THE PRESENT REORGANIZA- 
TION IN SOCIETY 745. 

THE REORGANIZATION ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED IN 

SECONDARY EDUCATION 746 

THE REORGANIZATION TO BE ACCOMPLISHED . .746 

UNIFORMITY IN EXISTING AIMS AND PRACTICES . . 747 
RECENT SPECIALIZATION IN HIGH SCHOOLS .749 

FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR FURTHER ADVANCE IN THE 

REORGANIZATION OF AIMS 750 

REORGANIZATION IN METHODS OF TEACHING AND OF 

PROCEDURE 753 

EXISTING NEED FOR REORGANIZATION CAN BE UN- 
DERSTOOD ONLY THROUGH A STUDY OF THE 
EVOLUTION OF EXISTING PRACTICES . .755 
CHARACTER OF PROSPECTIVE REORGANIZATION . 756 
AGENCIES OR INSTITUTIONS CONTRIBUTING TO EDU- 
CATION 756 

THE SCHOOL AS THE SPECIAL AGENCY OF EDUCATION 758 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE AIMS AND PROCESSES OF 
EDUCATION AS DETERMINING ITS REORGANIZA- 
TION 759 

Physical Education . . 760 

Vocational Education 761 

Social Education 762 

Cultural Education 764 

Culture Primarily Based on Contemporary Life .... 766 

Personal Culture and Achievement ...... 767 

REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION NECES- 
SITATED BY FOREGOING ANALYSIS . .767 

In Physical Education 768 

In Vocational Education 769 

In Social Education 770 

In Cultural Education . . . . . . . .770 

Effect on the Traditional Subjects 772 

Administrative Changes Necessitated 773 

THE FINAL WORD IS THIS .774 



PRINCIPLES 

OF 

SECONDARY EDUCATION 



PRINCIPLES OF SECONDARY 
EDUCATION 

CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION: SCOPE OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 

FUNDAMENTAL IMPORTANCE OF THE SECONDARY 
SCHOOL. — The secondary school has been the bearer of 
the dominant educational traditions from the time of the 
Renaissance to the present. Until very recent times revo- 
lutionary ideas and new methods in education have been 
worked out in the secondary schools. Herbart formulated 
and tested all his educational ideas in that phase of education 
which we would call secondary. Froebel early taught in 
a secondary school and later developed an experimental one; 
from this experience he formulated his theories of education 
a dozen years before he established the first kindergarten. 
Until the middle of the nineteenth century the secondary 
school was the dominant educational institution in most 
countries, more influential in contributing ideas and shaping 
policies than schools either preliminary or subsequent to it. 
Even now in most countries except the United States the 
secondary school is the most important and influential portion 
of the educational system. 

The secondary school has been established longer, in its 
procedure, organization, curriculum, and method, than either 
elementary school or university. It has been the most stable 
as well as most enduring part of our educational system. 

NO AGREEMENT AS TO SCOPE OR MEANING OF 
SECONDARY EDUCATION. — Notwithstanding these facts 
there is now no consensus of opinion as to the scope or meaning 

B I 



2 Principles of Secondary Educatioit 

of secondary education. It has a local significance and a 
peculiar purpose in each country. In our own country the 
views conzsmijUg secondary education as to its purpose, 
scope, curriculum, method, or organization are of the most 
diverse character, even among those who are specialists in 
this very field. 

Reasons for this Diversity. — The reasons for this 
unsettled condition lie in the nature of the case. Second- 
ary education has meant different things in different ages and 
to different peoples because of the divergences in social life 
and structure. As the socially determining phase of education, 
it has conformed to the varying needs of each stage of social 
development and of each type of society. The indefiniteness 
of present views as to the purpose and the scope is due to the 
very great complexity of modern society and the greatly 
multiplied needs of modern life; to the enhanced responsi- 
bility of the modern school; to the assumption by the ele- 
mentary school of the place of fundamental and initial im- 
portance in the modern educational scheme ; and to the fact 
that in America secondary education has become a super- 
posed stage, not an alternative phase of education. 

By passing in brief review the various conceptions of second- 
ary education as these have been shaped by the varying needs 
of different periods and peoples, an understanding of the 
present situation may be reached. For the present is heir not 
only to the achievements of all the ages but to many of their 
problems. The social situation which secondary education 
confronts to-day and which the secondary school attempts to 
meet is a complex of these conditions of the past ; so the mean- 
ing and scope of secondary education is a complex of these 
various conceptions and procedures of the past. 

The present state of affairs in secondary education is con- 
fusing because the several problems of the various stages of 
the past are now bound up in one situation. No one condition 
is determining; no statement of the problem of scope and 



Introduction: Scope of Secondary Education 3 

purpose in terms of a single factor or force or situation or aim 
is sufficient. A variety of each of these is involved. 

The following chapter will work out in greater detail these 
typical forms of secondary education. 

SECONDARY EDUCATION DETERMINED BY THE 
NATURE OF THE PROCESS: TRAINING us. INSTRUC- 
TION. — The earliest distinction between primary and second- 
ary stages of education to be worked out was that based upon 
the nature of the process. When education became a con- 
scious social process, its earliest stages were seen to consist 
in that training in habit formation which produced the char- 
acter demanded by the adult generation. These desired 
social and moral qualities revealed themselves chiefly in types 
of conduct and had little to do with attitudes of mind. But 
it was soon seen that a different sort of education was necessary 
for the dominant class of society, characterized by greater 
intellectual alertness and a tendency to moral innovations. 
This inquiring class needed an education which would make 
clear the foundations of the habits formed, and which would 
even allow a modification of conduct based upon an investi- 
gation and consideration of such fundamental conditions. 
In other words, this new type of education became intellectual 
instead of moral; its central process was that of instruction 
as contrasted with training or habit-formation. Incidentally 
it became restricted to a superior class, while the education 
of character-formation remained general in its scope. This 
was the distinction worked out by the Greeks, by whom it was 
first attained. 

This differentiation being accepted, secondary education 
was seen to be a superi or pr ocess, elaborated for, and capable 
of assimilation only by, a superior class and resulting in 
a superior social product. In its highest form it also assumed 
a position of distinct superiority in the educational scheme 
and, with some further historical elaboration, became the 
" liberal education " of many subsequent generations. 



4 Principles of Secondary Education 

SECONDARY EDUCATION BASED UPON SUBJECT 
MATTER. — The differentiation of secondary education on 
the basis of the method used, involved also the choice of subject 
matter. In its origin, however, this importance of subject 
matter seemed to be of derivative, not of initial, value. With 
the elaboration of processes of instruction, as opposed to 
processes of training, the reflective consideration of human 
experience became formulated. These formulations of ex- 
perience were among the many achievements of the Greeks. 
Thus grammar was developed as a conscious consideration 
of human speech as a process of expressing experience ; 
rhetoric as conscious consideration of speech as a form of social 
control ; logic as a conscious consideration of human thought 
as an instrument for the control of human experiences in 
connection with the social or the physical or the spiritual 
environment. 

The profound emphasis upon the character of subject matter 
as the determining factor in secondary education was given 
in the Renaissance period. This emphasis resulted from the 
realization that the most valuable account of human experience 
and activities was to be found in the literature of past ages, 
expressed in tongues which then had become foreign. Second- 
ary education then came to be a matter of the mastery of these 
foreign languages and literatures. This condition continued 
to involve the difference in method. But the delimiting factors 
of secondary education became much broader than method; 
for the general view of method now came to be not that of in- 
struction as opposed to training, but the method of studying 
and teaching foreign languages and literatures — or to be more 
specific, methods of studying Latin and Greek. In this stage 
secondary education remained for several centuries. This 
distinction based on subject matter, or on subject matter and 
appropriate method combined, remains the most important 
factor in determining the scope and purpose of secondary 
education. In more recent periods mathematics and science 



Introductio7i : Scope of Secondary Edtication 5 

either came to share with the classics this place as distinctive 
subject matter or, with modern languages and literature, 
replaced them altogether. 

While subject matter and method have thus been most 
influential, at least in determining the scope of secondary 
education, its purpose with given peoples or in given periods 
has often been determined by other considerations. And at 
present the distinction furnished by subject matter and method 
is conspicuously inadequate, even to determine scope. 

DISTINCTION BASED UPON PROFESSIONAL PREP- 
ARATION. — • The separation of the secondary from the 
lower stage in education was rendered saner as well as more 
distinct by the condition which early developed, giving a 
peculiar professional value to these specially selected methods 
and subjects of study. Even among the Greeks those who 
applied themselves to the mastery of grammar, rhetoric, and 
logic soon formed a profession. This group was made a social 
class, not simply because its members possessed certain special 
knowledge, but because they possessed valued powers developed 
by use of the new methods. Such soon became the ruling 
classes in society; the rhetorician, the philosopher, or the 
politician, replaced the soldier and those trained by the old 
methods as the dominant factors in society. 

Among the Romans, and especially during the Middle Ages, 
secondary education was elaborated as a conscious social 
process into this preparation for the professions dominant in 
society. To produce the orator and lawyer became the chief 
object of the Roman grammar and rhetorical schools. With 
the medieval church in the ascendency, the higher clergy 
came to perform practically all the professional services for 
society. The Latin grammar school came to be the only 
avenue for admission to these higher branches of the clergy. 
While subject matter and method were still characteristics, 
the predominant feature of secondary education was the fact 
that it was the sole means of preparation for those activities 



6 Principles of Secondary Education 

which directed social forces and the sole entrance to those 
professions. 

With the development of the university the secondary school 
ceased to be a direct preparation for the professions and became 
preparatory to the training for these professions now given by 
the higher schools. And such it has remained. Continuing 
this peculiar professional privilege, though not fitting directly 
for the professions, these schools have become more remote 
from the immediate needs of society and more abstract in 
their view of subject matter and method. 

SECONDARY EDUCATION AS A CLASS DISTINC- 
TION. — As secondary education changed from a professional 
training to a preparatory stage to such training, it developed 
another aspect. In losing its distinct professional cast it 
made a much broader appeal and became a badge of class 
distinction. This function of secondary education became 
prominent in the Renaissance and post-Renaissance period. 
It remains to-day a powerful factor in determining the char- 
acter and scope of secondary education. Among certain 
classes of people rather than at any period of history, the sig- 
nificance of secondary education as a class distinction is 
characteristic. 

As the secondary schools, at least the great Public Schools 
of England, lost their distinct function of preparing poor boys 
for the university and thus for the clergy, they became popular 
as training centers for the sons of the gentry. Intellectual 
work became a subordinate part of the training; subject 
matter and method became stereotyped, formal, traditional. 
It was the social stamp given by the peculiar conditions of 
a highly artificial life that was prized. 

This conception of secondary education was most influential 
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though it 
persisted well into the nineteenth as a view accepted not only 
socially but also educationally. In furnishing the personal 
motive it undoubtedly is widely operative to-day, though it is 



Introduction: Scope of Secondary Education 7 

hardly accepted as a social justification or by any group of 
professional educators. 

During the late seventeenth and the eighteenth century 
this view affected elementary and higher education as well 
as secondary. For large sections of people, education of any 
t}^e was the mark of the leisure class. Hence, as is the case 
. with dress or amusement or employment or any form of 
distinction of the leisure class, the more remote from practical 
use it was and the more completely it unfitted the possessor 
for practical activities, the more highly was it valued. Un- 
fortunately the early development of secondary education 
for girls was entirely on this basis, and this view has largely 
persisted. For a time any literary education outside of a pro- 
fessional class was regarded as such a class distinction. 

With the entrance of women in any numbers to the secondary 
field, education as a class adornment lost much of its literary 
cast, and incorporated a great variety of activities char- 
acteristic of the leisure classes of those periods. 

In European centers the social status of the family is still 
quite clearly indicated by the type of secondary school to 
which the children are sent, and it is frequently true that 
secondary education of a given type is sought merely for 
social reasons. While the American high school is so broad 
and indefinite in its scope that it fails to possess much of this 
peculiar social significance, yet it is true, partly because of its 
very lack of definite purpose, that many attend because it is 
an index of social class. 

This factor of class significance is one of the causes for the 
difficulty of developing in the United States a more strictly 
vocational type of secondary schools similar to those in 
European countries. 

< SECONDARY EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL 
SELECTION. — Underneath all of the distinctions of the 
secondary stage of education previously discussed, lies one 
possessing the greatest significance and one operative over 



8 Principles of Secondary Education 

the longest period. This is the view of secondary education 
as a means of selecting those most able and fit for social 
leadership of any type. This characteristic is involved in one 
of the distinctions already stated. It is really one way of 
stating that education is a preparation for professional life. 
But it is much broader than this professional conception, and 
works independent of it. It is probable that neither social 
nor educational leaders were conscious of this function until 
education had broadened beyond professional training. This 
greater breadth came definitely during the Renaissance- 
Reformation period. It was expressed by our Puritan fore- 
fathers in the phrase — " that learning might not be buried in 
the grave of our fathers in church and in commonwealth." 

To those who perpetuated the old Latin grammar school 
though conscious of its narrow conception of education, the 
institution was justified by its selective function. When the 
democratic spirit was increasing in the period previous to the 
nineteenth century, it .was this function of the school that was 
deemed of greatest significance. This selective system worked 
somewhat ruthlessly, but nevertheless directly and efiiciently, 
to its end. The Jesuit system avowedly rejected those of 
mediocre capacity and devoted its energies to those of superior 
abihties. Most of the Protestant systems more or less un- 
consciously and automatically did the same thing. Even in 
those countries where the autocratic spirit was comparatively 
wanting, as in Scotland, the entire attention of the secondary 
school was directed to " the lad o' parts." 

The democratic criticism of the secondary school of this 
type is aimed not so much at its purpose of selecting only the 
fittest, but at its very narrow conception of abilities. The 
type of mind that responded to this peculiar discipline, rigid 
and thorough, was tested in a very narrow range. It still 
remains the accepted belief, both socially and educationally, 
in most of the European countries, that the secondary edu- 
cational system is designed to select, by elimination or by 



Introductio7i: Scope of Secondary Educatio7i 9 

segregation, the intellectually ablest of the younger generation 
and to send them on, if not to prepare them directly for leader- 
ship in the various institutions of society. 

On the other hand, it is obviously true that the American 
schools in emphasizing the democratic purpose have minimized 
this selective function of the secondary school. The tendency 
in our own schools is to devote more attention to the sub- 
normal or to the mediocre than to the supernormal. It would 
be entirely possible to preserve both the democratic and the 
selective function of the secondary school if the false democ- 
racy which demands uniform treatment for all were replaced 
by the practice of differentiating students according to their 
interests, subject matter according to its social significance 
for the student taking it, and methods according to the in- 
dividual abilities of the students. 

SECONDARY EDUCATION BASED ON PHYSIOLOGI- 
CAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL AGE. — With the growth of 
modern individualism and of the natural sciences, there came 
into secondary education an entirely new consideration. It is 
now known that during the adolescent period the child undergoes 
such a radical change, physically and psychically, that education 
can find in these changes the sufficient basis for a differentia- 
tion between the earlier and the secondary stages of education. 

To Rousseau belongs the credit of first definitely emphasizing 
this fact. The European schools, based upon other traditions, 
hardly take these facts into consideration — at least as a basis 
for the differentiation of elementary and secondary education. 
The secondary education period begins in practically all 
European countries at about the ninth year of the pupil's 
age ; that is, some four or six years before the American child 
^ters upon this stage of education, and some years before 
adolescence. 

Other reasons were more influential in setting the age limits 
of the American secondary school, but the general recognition 
of the peculiar interests, abilities, and characteristics of the 



lo Principles of Secondary Education 

adolescent age has had much to do with determining these 
limits. While the democratic feature of elementary education 
is no doubt the determining factor in fixing the beginning of 
the secondary school period at about the fourteenth year, 
the recognition of the importance of the adolescent period has 
grown in weight throughout the history of the American high 
school. The old academies and the still older colonial Latin 
grammar schools took the youth much earlier than does the 
present high school. 

That the influence of the adolescent factor has been stronger 
than most others is shown by the fact that foreign languages, 
science, and higher mathematics have been made to conform 
to this distinction, when experience, the conditions in other 
countries, and the interests of the child would dictate an earlier 
approach. 

The seventh chapter of this volume gives an elaborate 
summary of the physical and psychical considerations which 
enter into the adolescent period and which must receive 
attention in determining the scope and character of secondary 
school work. Such considerations are becoming more and 
more influential and should be studied as a prominent, though 
not the sole, factor in determining problems of secondary 
education. 

SECONDARY EDUCATION DETERMINED BY THE 
STUDENT'S INTERESTS AND ABILITIES.— A factor of 
increasing importance in determJning the scope and purpose of 
secondary education is that embodied in the interests and 
abilities of the students. In considering its selective function 
as the determining element in secondary education, it was noted 
that the interests and abilities of only a very Kmited class of 
students were considered. But as a result of the increased 
attention given to the physical and psychical characteristics of 
adolescence as well as of the growing diversification in the needs 
of society, a wider range of student interests and abilities was 
provided for. This was the characteristic contribution of the 



Introduction: Scope of Secondary Education ii 

academies. The courtly academies of the continent, the non- 
conformist academies of England, the early American acad- 
emies, all catered to the interests of the students. So 
marked a feature did this become, especially in the American 
academies, that it resulted in what might be termed " local 
option " or even " personal option " in education. " If you 
do not see what you want in the curriculum, ask for it," was 
practically the working basis of many of these institutions. 
Such freedom and absence of standard could but be a pass- 
ing phase, even though it emphasized a much-needed prin- 
ciple of operation. 

A more stable and socially serviceable form of response to 
this same demand was made in the continental countries of 
Europe, especially among the Teutons, by the development of 
divergent types of secondary schools. Thus in time the Ger- 
man states added to the gymnasium, the pro-gymnasium, the 
real-gymnasium, the oher-real schule, the fortbildung schule, 
and the several forms of the technical and the commercial 
schools. Scarcely an interest or an ability of the adolescent 
fails to find an opportunity for expression and training in 
this diversified system. 

The American high schools attempt through a variety of 
alternative courses to meet the same need. These courses, 
however, are of such general nature that the schools do not 
function so efficiently as do the continental ones. 

THE PRESENT IS A COMBINATION OF ALL THESE 
FACTORS. — At the present time all of these factors enter into 
a determination of the scope and purpose of secondary educa- 
tion. Hence arise the complexity of the problem, the lack of 
agreement among those engaged in the work of secondary edu- 
cation, the absence of a common procedure or organization. 
Added to this fact is the other consideration that society is 
much more complex, and the individual has much greater 
liberty of choice and opportunity, than in any past stage. 
Consequently it is impossible to state in simple terms the 



12 Principles of Secondary Education 

problem of secondary education or to delimit with any great 
precision its scope and purpose. These are, or may be, as 
varied as the needs of society and the interests and abilities 
of. the students. Any theoretical formulation of principles 
and any practical organization of procedure must take account 
of all these factors. 

Some consideration must be given to the fundamental 
difference in methods between the elementary and the higher 
stages of education. While all school work has become 
primarily a matter of instruction, yet the element of rational 
interpretation of experience as a basis for future conduct 
must be made the guiding principle of method in the secondary 
stage. So to formulate the work of the secondary school that 
such rationalized intelligence will result is now recognized as 
one of the chief tasks of the educator. The stress placed upon 
method in the chapters on the natural and the social sciences 
as well as in the concluding chapter of this volume is in recogni- 
tion of this fact. 

The differentiation of subject matter is and must continue 
to be one of the determining factors in secondary education. 
But the practical demands that foreign languages, the higher 
phases of mathematics for some children, and the natural 
sciences taught by inductive methods for all children, should 
be begun much earlier, will probably bring in the United 
States a gradual lowering of the age of entrance to the second- 
ary school. 

In nearly all countries the completion of a secondary school 
course is the prerequisite for admission into most professions 
or professional schools. The present tendencies are all in the 
direction of making this requirement more general. No doubt 
in time such a requirement will become universal in the United 
States as it has in the Teutonic countries of Europe. Any 
consideration or any organization of secondary education must 
include this as a definite factor. 

The secondary stage of education continues to be a form of 



Introduction: Scope of Secojidary Education 13 

class distinction. And the conservation of social forces may 
well continue this influence. However, it should not be merely 
the badge of a leisure class. It should rather become, through 
a greater precision in the social functioning of the secondary 
school system, an index of efficiency in the various classes and 
groups in society. 

In European countries the secondary school continues to 
function as an instrument of social selection, and the tendency 
in our own country is in that direction. Social selection may 
work, however, not only by elimination, but by segregation. 
It is with difficulty that a democracy realizes the fact that 
social democracy and social stability depend upon specializa- 
tion and upon ef&cient development of individual ability. The 
guiding principle cannot be to treat all students alike, but 
to develop as many specialized lines of training as the com- 
munity can support. There is now in our country greater 
need than ever for the training of leaders and for an instru- 
ment of social selection. The haphazard methods of the past 
are proving too wasteful to be long continued. National if 
not individual competition will force such specialization and 
definite training upon us. The intelHgence which demands 
the best training of the efficient must be joined to the pre- 
vailing sentiment for the education of the subnormal if our 
country is to hold its own as the advantages due to our un- 
limited natural resources gradually disappear. The selection 
and the training of the socially efficient or the supernormal 
is probably the factor that needs most stressing in the present 
state of our secondary education. 

The psychical and physical factors influential in secondary 
education have never before received so much consideration 
as is now being given to them. The careful continuous study 
of these factors cannot but throw light upon the whole problem, 
despite the number and the importance of the other factors. 

Similarly, students' interests and abilities are receiving un- 
precedented attention. And this must be continued. Such 



14 Principles of Secondary JEdiication 

consideration bids fair to bring about a much greater diver- 
sification in our secondary education than we have ever had. 

SECONDARY EDUCATION AS A PREPARATION FOR 
SOCIAL SERVICE AND A TRAINING IN EFFICIENCY. — 

All the factors of the past are now present and operative. 
This fact in itself would seem to be sufficient to explain the 
complexity and the importance of the present problem in 
secondary education. But to these is added one other, an 
entirely new one and a dominating one. 

This fact is that there is a dawning perception that secondary 
education must become universal as elementary education has 
now become. This situation is not clearly recognized, but its 
existence explains much of the uncertainty and much of the 
difficulty of the present. 

In all of the highly developed modern societies the inade- 
quacy of the existing form of elementary education is being 
recognized. In addition a special vocational training is needed 
for the rank and file of society workers ; and the selected 
leaders in professional or vocational activities of a higher social 
and intellectual status should have a broader general education 
as a basis for their subsequent vocational training. 

Hence in European countries extended systems of diver- 
sified secondary schools have developed, including not only 
the varied forms of schools preparatory to the professions and 
to scientific employments, but a like variety of technical vo- 
cational schools for those engaged in common industry of any 
form. Several German states and other Teutonic countries 
make it incumbent on practically every individual entering 
into industry or commerce to take such training. That for 
the higher professional and scientific employments has long 
been obligatory. 

In English-speaking countries, more jealous of individual 
initiative and of freedom from regulation, the development 
has been much more tardy. In our own country the pressure 
of complex social conditions has also been much less. Con- 



Introduction: Scope of Secondary Education 15 

sequently the development of a variety of vocational continu- 
ation schools of secondary character has but just begun. The 
demand for the universality of secondary education is indicated 
by the growing recognition of the necessity for such schools 
throughout our own country, as well as by the greatly increased 
attendance upon our present secondary schools and by the 
variety of attempts to diversify the course of study in the 
traditional schools. If such diversification were adequately 
provided for, both through varied courses and through new 
types of schools less bound to traditional methods, the attend- 
ance upon secondary schools would become vastly greater. 

But our own country will realize in time, as the countries 
of continental Europe have already done, that this matter 
cannot be left to individual interest and choice. The in- 
terests of society demand such advanced and more specialized 
training for all its members. Granting that there are still 
great numbers who are free from the necessity of a definite 
vocational training, an advanced training for the benefit of 
those possessing leisure is just as essential, if they are to be 
socially efficient. 

For women, whether in vocation, or responsible for the home, 
or belonging to a leisure class, the same need is becoming evi- 
dent. And no doubt the educational aspect of the present 
" woman's movement " will become more and more distinct 
as experience adds its influence to a priori arguments. 

The concluding chapter of this volume presents this view 
of the universalization of secondary education, not only in its 
opportunities but in its realization, in the form of an argument 
in terms of social efficiency and service. In time this argument 
of expediency will become one of necessity, as society in America 
becomes subject to somewhat more of the economic pressure 
that exists in other countries, and as political, economic, and 
social problems take a more definite and concrete form than 
they now have. 



CHAPTER II 
HISTORIC SKETCH OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 

ORIGIN OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ELE- 
MENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION. — The dis- 
tinction between secondary and elementary education first 
arose with the Greeks. On the practical side this distinction 
grew out of the transition from the simple life of the old Greeks 
to the complex conditions of later Greek society. Increase 
of wealth, of leisure, of luxuries, and of democratic political 
power and the decline of military interests characterized the 
latter and called for a new education. On the theoretical 
side the distinction grew out of the reflective consideration 
by the philosophers of educational processes. They recognized 
the difference between the simple habit-formation in the home 
life of their early generations and the artificial processes of 
instruction necessary for skilled and specialized participation 
in a highly developed society. 

Origin of the Practical Distinction. — Old Greek education, 
like all other forms of education in early stages of historic 
growth and in simple social life, was a training in habits of 
conduct. The traits of character which the Greeks valued in 
an individual were courage, temperance, reverence, and good 
practical judgment. These traits when developed in an in- 
dividual produced in him that marked personality which was 
valued by the Greek. They gave to the individual possessing 
them a social value which entitled him to become a member of 
the group. In a simple society where agricultural or pastoral 
pursuits were the chief occupation of private life and military 
activities the chief public duties, and where slaves performed 
most menial work, Httle differentiation of social classes would 

i6 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education ij 

exist. Without any great distinction of social classes or of 
economic and social activities, little differentiation in education 
could take place. So long as education was conceived in terms 
of the virtues of conduct, the processes of education were largely 
those of a " doing " as opposed to those of a reflective kind. 
The simple means which the early Greek used to secure these 
several results in habit-formation were music and gymnastics. 
It is a striking fact that the people commonly held to be the 
most cultured and intellectual of all peoples had until late in 
their history little if any of that linguistic or literary training 
which in all subsequent schemes has been made the basis of 
all cultural education. The culture elements which in the 
Greek scheme were the products have been made the means 
in all subsequent schemes. 

Plato says of this stage, " Education has two branches : 
one of gymnastics, which is concerned with the body, and the 
other of music, which is designed for the improvement of the 
soul. ' ' Gymnastics he then divides into wrestling and dancing. 
The ordinary Greek curriculum was running, jumping, wres- 
tling, throwing the javelin, and boxing. Music in the schools 
was no less a " doing " process. It consisted in repeating 
poetry to a musical improvisation which would express the 
emotional content of the poem. 

While this education in habit-formation through the use of 
music and gymnastics flourished, the simple society which 
gave it birth was giving way to a much more complex one. 
In the political world the old aristocracy was passing away and 
a democracy of free citizens, exercising very great direct powers 
over the wealth, the individual liberties, and the personal 
welfare of its members, was taking its place. On the economic 
side trade and commerce had developed, and the classes pur- 
suing these interests came to replace in power those whose 
economic basis was in agricultural or pastoral interests. 
Following a period of economic expansion and of division of 
labor, a great variety of new social and industrial activities 



1 8 ^ Principles of Secondary Education 

sprang up. A period of great military activity was followed 
by one of expansion of national power, with its opportunities 
for realization of personal aims, for revelation of political 
ability, and for personal aggrandizement through the direction, 
or manipulation of public affairs. Small city-states now were 
replaced by a great Grecian people with a common culture, 
a broader horizon, and a larger social opportunity. This 
meant a closer contact with foreign ideas and customs and 
a consequent toleration. A reflective as well as a cultural 
literature developed. Religious ideas changed, old customs 
lost their compelling force, old ideals failed. The old theology 
or mythology was completely undermined, with a resulting 
change in philosophy and literature as well as in morals and 
religion. In this new world the traditional education of train- 
ing in habits of action in conformity with certain simple 
fundamental moral ideals lost its force. 

Out of this situation, secondary education as a practical 
process evolved. Neither the old philosophy and religion nor 
the old-fashioned training sufficed for the new needs. The 
demands on education made by these social changes — political, 
economic, ethical, literary, and the like — were twofold. 
There was first a demand for greater freedom for the individual 
in action and thought, to correspond with the growth of freedom 
in the political sphere. Second, there was a demand for train- 
ing or education that would enable the individual to take ad- 
vantage of the unprecedented opportunities for personal 
achievement and aggrandizement. Ability to discuss all 
sorts of social, political, economic, and scientific or meta- 
physical questions ; to argue in public in the market place 
or in the law courts ; to declaim in a formal manner upon almost 
any topic ; to amuse or to instruct the populace upon topics 
of interest or questions of the day ; to take part in the many 
diplomatic embassies and political missions of the times, — was 
now demanded. In fact, the demand was for an ability to 
acquire wealth or to command the approval and control the 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 19 

votes of an intelligent democratic society much like our own ; 
where, however, the functions of printing press, telegraph, 
railroad, and all modern means of communication were per- 
formed through public speech and private discourse, and where 
legal, ecclesiastical, and other professional classes of teachers 
did not exist. The old Athenian state made no provision 
whatever for higher intellectual training of a formal kind, but 
it did offer opportunity for such development in the freedom 
it gave to the individual during the period of his training in 
the gymnasium and after the military training of the Ephebic 
period. 

Whether approached from the theoretical or from the practi- 
cal side, the formal subjects of study became the basis of the 
new education. Out of the social and intellectual changes 
noted grew new subjects, foreign in character to the simple 
music and gymnastics of the early period. Grammar, the form 
and arrangement of language ; rhetoric, the form and arrange- 
ment of written or oral speech ; logic or dialectic, the form and 
arrangement of thought, — were the contributions of the soph- 
ist, the rhetorician, and the philosopher of this period. These 
formal or abstract studies, modifying or determining habits 
of thought rather than habits of action, now became the basis 
of education. Grammar and rhetoric, relating more directly 
to everyday life as participated in by the orator, became the 
practical aspect of secondary education. Logic or dialectic, 
concerned with the reflective or thought life, became the basis 
of the theoretical phase. Each produced its own type of school. 
The rhetorical school and the dialectic or philosophical school 
long persisted ; the grammar school remains to the present 
day. 

Origin of the Theoretical Distinction. — The theoretical dis- 
tinction between elementary and secondary education arose 
with those Greek thinkers who contemplated the conflict aris- 
ing in this transition from a simple society to a complex one 
wherein individualism had undermined most of the old social 



20 Principles of Secondary Education 

standards, and who also saw this conflict between the practical 
and the theoretical aspects in the earliest differentiation of sec- 
ondary education. In the Republic (Bk. VII) Plato seeks for a 
scheme of education adequate to produce the rulers of society, a 
scheme which would not only cultivate the virtues demanded 
under the old regime, but which would also give knowledge and 
develop virtue and disinterestedness. Music and gymnastics 
he considered inadequate and the useful arts demeaning. 
But he declares in favor of the " study of the kind which leads 
naturally to reflection but which seems never to have been 
rightfully used ; for the true use of it is to draw us towards 
being (abstract thought)." He finds that arithmetic, geom- 
etry, astronomy, and harmony comply with these require- 
ments. These in turn are to be used primarily as an intro- 
duction to the study of abstract ideas, '' in which if one 
perseveres, he attains by pure intelligence to the idea of good 
and finds himself at the end of the intellectual world." 

Aristotle first formulated this distinction in his psychologi- 
cal analysis : 

" There are three things which make men good and virtu- 
ous : these are nature, habit, reason. In the first place, 
every one must be born a man and not some other animal; 
in the second place, he must have a certain character, both 
of body and of soul. But some qualities there is no use in 
having at birth, for they are altered by habit, and there are 
some gifts of nature which may be turned by habit to good 
or bad. Most animals lead a life of nature, although in 
lesser particulars some are influenced by habit as well. Man 
has reason, in addition, and man only. Wherefore nature, 
habit, reason, must be in harmony with one another — for 
they do not always agree ; men do many things against 
habit and nature, if reason persuades them that they ought. 
We have already determined what natures are likely to be 
most easily molded by the hands of the legislator. All 
else is the work of education ; we learn some things by habit 
and some by instruction." 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 21 

This distinction of Aristotle's brings out most clearly the 
fundamental difference in practice between elementary and 
secondary education with the Greeks. The former was pri- 
marily the formation of habit through athletic activities, the 
singing of songs, the memorizing and repetition of poetic 
legends, and the improvisation of a musical accompaniment. 
Gracefulness in movement, courage and quick decision in 
danger, endurance under physical hardships, reverence for 
elders and for things sacred, obedience to authority, devotion 
to the state, good judgment in practical affairs, temperance 
in all forms of personal pleasure or relaxation, were thus to be 
obtained. 

But the formation of such habits no longer sufi&ced to equip 
a youth to enter the changed social life. He must have 
guidance in adapting himself to new and changing condi- 
tions. He needed not only to -form such habits, adequate 
under the old conditions, but to develop the power to modify 
his habits or to form new and more complex ones, to meet new 
and complex situations. Therefore he needed instruction as 
well as training. Herein lies the fundamental distinction 
between the two stages of education. Elementary education 
looked to the formation of habits by the process of training; 
secondary education sought to develop general intelligence 
by the process of instruction. 

Aristotle further elaborates this distinction on the ethical 
and philosophical side. In his ethical theory he has defined 
goodness as the harmony between the organ or organism and 
its purpose or function, and has discovered two kinds of good- 
ness. There is goodness of being and goodness of doing ; good- 
ness of thinking and goodness of acting ; goodness of intellect 
and goodness of character. The special function of the higher 
stage of education is to secure this goodness of intellect ; to 
provide the rational basis for conduct ; to furnish the in- 
tellectual preparation for the proper functioning of the in- 
dividual in society. 



22 Principles of Secondary Education 

THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF GREECE.— The prac- 
tical elaboration of these educational processes early evolved in 
Greek experience the same problem which confronts the modern 
educator. Are these needs of society and of the individual 
best met by a process of instruction which deals wholly with 
the interpretative aspect of experience more or less remotely 
connected with the actual situations of everyday life? Or 
is it better met by a schooling which contains large elements 
of training in the actual application of the products of in- 
struction through activities which closely resemble the or- 
dinary social routine, if they are not actually a part of it? 
Hence arose the two types of schools, the philosophical 
or dialectic and the rhetorical. 

The Philosophical Schools. — The more important of the 
philosophicaTschools were the Academician, the Peripatetic, 
the Stoic, and the Cynic. But there were others of less sig- 
nificance. And of even greater importance to the youth 
entering this stage of education were the numerous prepara- 
tory schools either connected with these advanced schools of 
philosophy or independent of them. They gave the gram- 
matical training essential to entrance upon the logical or 
philosophical discussions and gave also the rudimentary 
training along these lines. The Platonic dialogues and the 
Greek philosophical literature in general are the products 
of these higher schools and represent their work at its best. 
They also indicate the simplicity of organization in these 
schools, the informality of method, the general vagueness 
or abstractness of their content of instruction. That the 
majority of such schools were inferior to these four more noted 
ones is indicated by the variety of criticisms directed against 
the work of the Sophists, most of whom after all belonged to 
this group of teachers. 

The Rhetorical Schools, — These were of a far more prac- 
tical character. While they gave instruction in grammar 
and literature, their characteristic work was the actual train- 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Edtication 23 

ing in declamation and in oratory. The ordinary school — ■ 
the grammar school or school of letters — also frequently 
taught arithmetic and geometry. But a practical train- 
ing in the use of language as a means of influencing one's 
fellows, of defending one's rights, and of furthering one's 
own interest in public and business life was the chief 
aim. \ 

Of the method of procedure of these schools we have some 
indications left. There were various types of oratory in 
which the youth were trained. Chief of them were the fo- 
rensic, the deliberative, the apologetic, the expository. Speci- 
men subjects of such exercises are mentioned. The speeches 
of the Sophists referred to in Plato, those of Socrates, and the 
lectures of Aristotle furnish examples of these discourses in 
their perfected form. 

Little is known of the organization of these schools. In 
the later period, in the flourishing period of the so-called 
University of Athens, numerous tutors, some affiliated with 
the professors of the University, some independent, were 
found in connection with this crowning institution of the 
Greek educational system. In other Greek cities similar 
schools flourished.^ However numerous and prosperous the 
schools of this type, it does not appear that the state ever 
extended any support or supervision to them. To the Sophists, 
the rhetoricians, and the philosophers of the University teach- ■ 
ing staff, the Greek state and later the Roman government 
gave both oversight and financial assistance. In the long 
transition period between the time when the Ephebic train- 
ing was wholly military, physical, and civic to the time when 
it had become wholly literary under the University faculty, 
the Athenian government continued to exercise control over 
the native youth who chose to strive for this type of education. 
But as it took on a literary character, this stage of education 
ceased to be compulsory. At the same time it came to be 
^See Walden, Unkersities of Ancient Greece. 



24 Principles of Secondary Education 

sought after by non-Athenian youth and so ceased to be 
distinctive. 

However, in the very early stages of the differentiation of 
these two types of education, the defects which are yet attrib- 
uted to them aroused criticism. The Hterary, philosophical 
or dialectic education was held to be abstract, theoretic, and 
impracticable. The rhetorical schools were regarded by the 
advocates of the other type as materialistic, illiberal, or even 
as tending to lower the whole moral tone of society. 

Thus for both theoretic and practical aspects, Greek educa- 
tion and Greek experience outlined the present problems of 
secondary education. 

THE ROMAN SECONDARY SCHOOL. — The Romans 
accepted the Greek educational system, particularly that por- 
tion of interest in this study, with little modification. They 
added little to it of significance to modern times. They sys- 
tematized and perfected curriculum and method ; and in the 
latter period of their history they built up a system of schools, 
some remnant of which persisted long into the Middle Ages. 

The historian Suetonius, writing about 121 a.d., gives as 
explicit an account of the beginnings of secondary education 
in Rome as one can now give. 

'' The science of grammar was in ancient times far from 
being in vogue at Rome ; indeed, it was of little use in a rude 
state of society, when the people were engaged in constant 
wars, and had not much time to bestow on the cultivation 
of the liberal arts. At the outset, its pretensions were very 
slender, for the earliest men of learning, who were both poets 
and orators, may be considered as half-Greek : I speak of 
Livius and Ennius, who are acknowledged to have taught 
both languages as well at Rome as in foreign parts. But 
they only translated from the Greek, and if they composed 
anything of their own in Latin, it was only from what they 
had before read. . . . The appellation of grammarian was 
borrowed from the Greeks; but at first the Latins called 
such persons literati. . . . The early grammarians taught 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 25 

rhetoric also, and we have many of their treatises which in- 
clude both sciences ; whence it arose, I think, that in later 
times, although the two professions had then become distinct, 
the old custom was retained, or the grammarians introduced 
into their teaching some of the elements required for public 
speaking, such as the problem, the periphrasis, the choice 
of words, description of character, and the like ; in order 
that they might not transfer their pupils to the rhetoricians 
no better than ill-taught boys." 

The Grammar School then became the dominant type. 
For while the rhetorical school was often added as a superior 
school, yet more frequently, especially when preceded by 
the ludus, or elementary school, the grammar school added 
on the rudiments of rhetorical training, by giving the youth 
practical training in declamation and oratory. The grammar 
school was of two types : one teaching Greek, the other Latin. 
About 161 B.C. the Senate decreed " that no philosophers or 
rhetoricians be allowed in Rome." And in 92 B.C. a similar 
action regarding Latin rhetoricians was taken by the Censors. 
This indicates the foreign origin of the formal Roman educa- 
tion, its effect in undermining old custom, and its purpose 
in preparing youths to avail themselves of new opportunities. 
By the close of the first Christian century the grammar school, 
subsidized if not supported by the state or the municipality, 
became a common feature. Before the decline of the Empire 
their existence may be said to have been universal. In 376 
the Emperor Gratian determined the schedule of salaries 
and assigned the grammar teachers a place in the municipal 
budgets. The grammar school master was to receive a stipend 
20 times as great as the annual wage of the ordinary workman, 
and the rhetoric master one 24 times as large. 

The Curriculum was elaborated and crystallized in the 
form which it retained until the Renaissance. The grammar 
and the rhetoric of the early centuries were evidently very 
simple. But when Cicero's De Oratore was published (55 B.C.) 



26 Principles of Secondary Education 

— though Cicero represented a foreign training — grammar 
and rhetoric had come to include all literature, or at least a 
very broad Kterary training. With the De Oratore of Tacitus 
(79 A.D.) and the Institutes of Quintilian (96 a.d.), this curric- 
ulum, still literary, contained history, poetry, philosophy, 
and the entire range of subjects then known. In fact the 
liberal arts were not yet limited to seven, but included archi- 
tecture, medicine, and philosophy, along with grammar, 
rhetoric, dialectic, aritlimetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. 
While this wide range of subjects was held up as the proper 
preparation of the true orator, it is evident even from these 
treatises which expound the ideal, that the work of most, if 
not all, secondary schools was confined to a very narrow though 
thorough training in grammar and rhetoric. By the latter is 
meant both the practical training in declamation and oratory 
and the instruction underlying these. Of the scope of rhetori- 
cal training Cicero says : 

" In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an orator possessed 
of every praiseworthy accomplishment, unless he has attained 
the knowledge of everything important and of all liberal arts, 
for his language must be ornate and copious from knowledge, 
since, unless there be beneath the surface matter understood 
and felt by the speaker, oratory becomes an empty and almost 
puerile flow of words." 

The views of Tacitus are similar : 

" On the contrary, he alone can justly be deemed an orator, 
who can speak on every subject gracefully, ornately, and 
persuasively, in a manner suitable to the dignity of his subject, 
and with pleasure to his hearers. . . . Accordingly the 
ancient orators not only studied the civil laws, but also gram- 
mar, poetry, music, and geometry. Indeed, there are few 
cases (perhaps I might justly say there are none) wherein a 
skill in the first is not absolutely necessary; and there are 
many in which an acquaintance with the last-mentioned 
sciences is highly requisite." 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 27 

As to the elaboration of the content of rhetoric it is suffi- 
cient to call to mind that Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, are 
not only the originators of this science, but are among the 
greatest authorities now quoted. The subject stands sub- 
stantially to-day as it was elaborated by these writers. Nor 
is this Quintilian's only contribution to education, for his 
Institutes is not only the first but probably the most volu- 
minous and detailed of the systematic treatises that have 
yet appeared on the whole subject of education. 

Donatus (c. 400 a.d.) and Priscian (c. 500 a.d.) completed 
the systematization of the curriculum and organized the 
elements of literary education in the form in which they were 
transmitted to the Middle Ages. For several centuries their 
work constituted almost the entire structure of literary educa- 
tion. Boethius {c. 480-524) made a similar contribution in 
dialectic and philosophy. The work of these men brought 
the Roman epoch in education to a close, and epitomized its 
contributions to the curriculum. 

The Roman Contribution to Method. — The Romans sys- 
tematized method as they did the curriculum. Their writers 
have left concrete indications of methods used, from the 
learning of the alphabet to the study of philosophy. In fact 
Quintilian's treatise is chiefly a discussion of method. He 
would have the idea acquired with the form, would use means 
to arouse interest, would avoid compulsion, would have the 
study of Greek grammar precede that of Latin grammar. 
The detail with which this greatest of Roman schoolmasters 
treats the subject as well as the rational conclusions which 
he usually reaches may be judged from the introductory para- 
graph of the chapter on reading. 

" Reading remains to be considered ; in which how a boy 
may know when to take breath, where to divide a verse, v/here 
the sense is concluded, where it begins, when the voice is to 
be raised or lowered, what is to be uttered with any particular 
inflection of sound, or what is to be pronounced with greater 



28 Principles of Secondary Education 

slowness or rapidity, with greater animation or gentleness 
than other passages, can be taught only in practice. There 
is but one direction, therefore, which I have to give in this 
part of my work, namely, that he may he able to do all this 
successfully, let him understand what he reads. . . . Other 
points demand much admonition to be given on them ; and 
care is to be taken, above all things, that tender minds, which 
will imbibe deeply whatever has entered them while rude and 
ignorant of everything, may learn, not only what is eloquent, 
but, still more, what is morally good." 

With great detail, the curriculum of literature, grammar, 
rhetoric, music, philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, 
and the entire range of ancient learning is presented. The 
content of these subjects, their educational value, the best 
methods of study and presentation, are considered. All 
these were essential for the orator ; and the orator constituted 
the one type of educated man. He was the philosopher 
active in the affairs of life. This one profession comprised 
the entire range of the modern professions, — lawyer, states- 
man, publicist, teacher, editor or molder of public opinion, 
— even clergyman, for orators were the guardians of public 
morals. Caesar's well-known fondness for the public address 
is an evidence of the part which this ability played in the 
equipment of a man of affairs. 

The relation of the processes of instruction to the processes 
of practical training in oratorical powers undertaken by the 
higher schools, with the resulting problems of adjustments, 
is thus stated by Quintilian : 

" It has been a prevalent custom (which daily gains ground 
more and more) for pupils to be sent to the teachers of elo- 
quence, to the Latin teachers always, and to the Greeks 
sometimes, at a more advanced age than reason requires. 
Of this practice there are two causes : that the rhetoricians, 
especially our own, have relinquished a part of their duties, 
and that the grammarians have appropriated what does not 
belong to them. The rhetoricians think it their business 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 29 

merely to declaim, and to teach the art and practice of de- 
claiming, confining themselves, too, to deliberate and judicial 
subjects (for others they despise as beneath their profession), 
while the grammarians, on their part, do not deem it sufficient 
to take what has been left them (on which- account also 
gratitude should be accorded them), but encroach even upon 
expository and deliberative speeches, in which the very great- 
est efforts of eloquence are displayed." 

Thus we get a prevision of those problems of adjustment 
of the secondary stage of education to advanced schools and 
to practical professional demands which yet demand the 
teacher's attention. 

Lists of subjects for debate, methods of training, forms of 
oratory, styles of address, are all given, indicating that greater 
attention was paid to the concrete details of this education 
than by modern law school or theological seminary, whose 
work would more nearly approximate that of the Roman 
schools of grammar and rhetoric than would that of the 
modern secondary school. 

This contribution of the Roman school to organization and 
method, though its influence evidently pervaded the Empire 
during the centuries of its decline, lapsed for the greater part 
of the Middle Ages. But with the Renaissance, QuintiHan's 
Institutes became both the guide of the new teachers of litera- 
ture and the authority commonly referred to and followed by 
several generations of scholars and teachers, now recognized 
as composing a new estate in society. 

THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL. 
— Little of permanent value was contributed by the Middle 
Ages to the traditions of the secondary school. That Httle 
was through the influences making the work of the grammar 
school a direct vocational training. The rhetoric school 
died out. Rhetoric came to be Kmited to a training in pre- 
paring legal papers and records, conducting legal and polit- 
ical or diplomatic correspondence, and in general for the 



30 Principles of Secondary Education 

secretarial work which included the genesis of many modern 
professional activities. Such training was given in the gram- 
mar schools under the title of rhetoric. Some little arith- 
metic, sufficient to calculate the calendar, with its numerous 
feast days, was also included. Logic or dialectic in the early 
Middle Ages was of little or no importance, and during the 
latter centuries of this period produced its own institution, 
the university. So the grammar school came to be the 
secondary school par excellence and continued to monopolize 
this field until a very recent date. 

As the scope of rhetoric broadened during the Roman 
period to include the preparatory training for the wide range 
of professions, so did grammar undergo a similar expansion 
during the Middle Ages. Not only did it include rhetoric 
and the training of the clerk and secretary, the embryonic 
lawyer and diplomat ; it provided in a similar way the training 
for the clergy, which profession then included the entire 
literary or learned class. 

Types and Extent of these Schools. — The most important 
change which these schools underwent in the transition from 
the Roman period to the Middle Ages was that they passed 
from the control of the state to that of the church. This 
process was a gradual one in the Romanized population and 
occurred as the bishop gradually acquired the authority of 
the civil magistrates. In the population largely composed 
of the new Teutonic elements there were no schools to replace, 
and the rudimentary training in grammar or letters was 
sufficient, but at the same time essential. So the grammar 
school, now the bishop's or the episcopal school, became general 
throughout western Christendom. 

This transfer took place during the sixth and seventh cen- 
turies. Though there is evidence that there was opposition 
upon the part of churchmen to the church's assuming this 
authority and responsibility, yet by the seventh century it 
seemed to be recognized as necessary, for as Isidore remarked. 



Historic Sketch of Secojzdary Education 31 

" It is better to have grammar than heresy." Under the 
title of grammar schools they are found in England under 
Augustine early in the seventh century. Alcuin's school at 
York was a century later. A canon of 826, rescinded in 1073, 
required the maintenance of such schools by all bishops. 
By the latter period, however, a distinct officer of the bishopric, 
the chancellor, had been evolved, in whose hands was placed 
the direct responsibility for the bishop's school and also for 
supervising all schools and licensing the schoolmasters. 

Meanwhile schools in churches other than cathedrals were 
growing up. In churches having a collegiate organization 
or even in parochial churches with adequate chantry founda- 
tions, grammar schools were to be established. A decretal 
of 1215 indicates the application of this order to England 
and the general papal authorization upon which it is based. 

" In every cathedral or other church of sufficient means, 
a master ought to be elected by the prelate or chapter, and 
the income of a prebend assigned to him, and in every metro- 
politan church a theologian also ought to be elected. And 
if the church is not rich enough to provide a grammarian and 
theologian, it shall provide for the theologian from the reve- 
nues of his church, and cause provision to be made for the 
grammarian in some church of his city or diocese." 

Meanwhile the monastic orders had come into control of 
many episcopal and collegiate churches and of the schools as 
well. Similar schools were frequently added to the organiza- 
tion of the monastic chapter. Schools were by no means a 
universal feature of monastic organization and were probably 
always inferior in importance to the bishops' schools. They 
sometimes cared for boys outside their order, but oftener 
limited their attention to their own novices. 

Free Schools and Endowments. — Two other changes 
occurred during this period which were of as fundamental 
importance as the transfer of the schools to ecclesiastical 
control. One was the growth of endowments for the support 



32 Principles of Secondary Education 

of the schools, a support now rendered essential by the with- 
drawal of civil contributions. The other was that these 
schools became free, at least to a select number of pupils. 
This change was partially consequent upon the fact that 
these were church schools for the training of prospective 
members of the clergy, and partially consequent upon the 
growth of endowments and the stress laid by the medieval 
church upon the virtue of charity. Such endowments began 
when the bishop set aside a portion of the cathedral endow- 
ment for the support of the schoolmaster, who had been 
recognized for several centuries as a distinct officer. Before 
this the schoolmaster was maintained out of the general 
revenues, as were the remaining clerks and the canons. Grad- 
ually it became the custom for bishops and even for kings or 
private parties to establish such foundations for the school- 
master. The decretal quoted on page 31 is probably the 
authority for the very general introduction of this custom. 

This custom of endowing secondary education, which in 
the early days of the universities did not extend to higher 
education, was so extended when private parties came to 
make such gifts, either for the support, in whole or part, of 
institutions already existing or of masters already at work, 
or for the creation of entirely new foundations. A new epoch 
in education was opened by one of these latter foundations, that 
of William of Wykeham at Winchester in 1382. This foun- 
dation was made on such a scale that the educational features 
entirely overshadowed the ecclesiastical and the philanthropic, 
and in consequence Winchester is commonly held to be the 
oldest of the type of great Public Schools of England. 

This feature of separate endowment was characteristic 
chiefly of England. But the general endowment of the 
grammar school or of the grammar school master through 
cathedral or monastic chapter or chantry foundation was 
found throughout Western Europe. Subsequent develop- 
ment takes one into the Renaissance-Reformation period. 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 33 

It is presumably true that cathedral schools gave free in- 
struction to the members of the bishop's entourage or to pro- 
spective clergy. But there are numerous indications that 
many masters taught grammar privately and that even the 
ecclesiastical foundations also had fees. The licensing of 
schoolmasters developed probably because of financial value 
of the monopoly as well as to preserve orthodoxy. When 
the period of endowments is reached, it is clear from the reading 
of the many deeds of gifts that their chief purpose was to 
furnish free educational opportunity, especially for poor youths. 
One of the best illustrations of this was Eton, founded by 
King Henry VI in 1440 for twenty-five " poor and indigent 
scholars to learn grammar " with " one master or teacher in 
grammar, whose duty it is to teach the said scholars and others 
whatsoever and whencesoever from our realm of England 
flocking to the said college in the rudiments of grammar, 
gratis, without the exaction of money or anything." Sub- 
sequent foundations of this type became more significant in 
the Renaissance and the Reformation period, though they 
were of great frequency in the closing centuries of the Middle 
Ages. 

The Curriculum. — Alcuin enumerates the studies pursued 
at York in the eighth century, naming law, music, and theology 
in addition to" the seven liberal arts. But this was beyond 
the range of most schools and of most scholars. Later, how- 
ever, he calls the school a grammar school, distinguishing it 
from the song school. In this, as in all schools, the great 
emphasis was put upon grammatical texts with the numerous 
commentaries. Throughout these centuries and until the 
university period the chief distinction made was that between 
the grammar school and the song school. The following 
excerpt from an ordinance of 1477 will make this distinction 
clear : 

" Ordinance. And that the grammar schoolmaster shall 
henceforth have the jurisdiction and government of all scholars 



34 Principles of Secondary Education 

in the liberty and precinct of this town, except the petties 
called ABCs and song, taking only for his fees, from every 
grammar scholar, psalter scholar, and primer scholar according 
to the scale fixed by the lord Bishop of Norwich, viz. for a 
grammarian \Qd., psalterian 8^^. and primarian dd. for quar- 
terage." 

The curriculum of the medieval grammar school was as 
restricted as the term indicates. Dialectic or logic became 
of importance only with the universities. Rhetoric, as in- 
dicated above, was restricted to technical legal preparation 
of a rudimentary character. The content of grammar school 
education was the content of grammar. Fortunately that 
was broader than the present use of the term indicates ; for 
within its scope was included all that those periods knew of 
literature. The advanced text most commonly used was 
Priscian, which was quite a thesaurus of Latin literature, 
particularly of Vergil. 

Method. — The medieval school added little of permanent 
value to method. The first months, or even years, were 
devoted to Donatus — the " dry bones " of linguistic rules, 
definitions, and paradigms. This was mastered by sheer 
effort of memory. Later texts, for instance the Doctrinale 
of Alexander de Villa Dei, attempted to lighten this work 
through versification; as the Distyches of Cato did, for ex- 
ample, for vocabulary purposes. The catechetical form is 
found in some texts and towards the close of this period was 
widely used in the schools. The various texts written by 
Alcuin offer an example of the crudest kind. The dialogue 
form was also used as well as that of formal address woven 
into literary text. When schools became well developed in 
the latter part of the period, an elaboration of method occurred. 
The favorite form became that of " apposition," wherein 
teacher and pupil carried on a spirited debate concerning 
rules, verbal forms, interpretation, etc. No doubt in its 
earliest stages this was pure memory work upon the part of 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 35 

the pupil and scarcely differed from the catechetical method. 
But skill and confidence developed with training, and the 
contest became one of genuine " apposition." All teaching 
was by individual instruction. 

The refinement of method with advanced students was the 
application of the various forms of interpretation to literary 
passages or sentences or words. These forms of interpreta- 
tion were the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the mystical 
or anagogical. The significance of these various types of 
method can best be given in the words of the greatest intellect 
and teacher of the Middle Ages. In The Banquet^ Dante 
says : 

" I say then, as is narrated in the first chapter, that this 
exposition must be literal and allegorical ; and to make this 
explicit one should know that it is possible to understand a 
book in four different ways, and that it ought to be explained 
chiefly in this manner. 

" The one is termed literal, and this is that which does not 
extend beyond the text itself, such as is the fit narration of 
that thing whereof you are discoursing, an appropriate ex- 
ample of which is the third song, which discourses of nobility. 

'' Another is termed allegorical, and it is that which is con- 
cealed under the veil of fables, and is a truth concealed under 
a beautiful untruth; as when Ovid says that Orpheus with 
his lute made the wild beasts tame, and made the trees and 
the stones to follow him, which signifies that the wise man 
with the instrument of his voice makes cruel hearts gentle 
and humble, and makes those follow his will who have not 
the living force of knowledge and of art ; who, having not the 
reasoning life of any knowledge whatever, are as the stones. 
And in order that this hidden thing should be discovered by 
the wise, it will be demonstrated in the last treatise. Verily 
the theologians take this meaning otherwise than do the poets ; 
but, because my intention here is to follow the way of the 
poets, I shall take the allegorical sense according as it is used 
by the poets. 

" The third sense is termed moral ; and this is that which 



36 Principles of Secondary Education 

the readers ought intently to search for in books, for their 
own advantage and for that of their descendants; as one 
can espy in the Gospel, when Christ ascended the Mount 
for the transfiguration, that, of the twelve Apostles, He took 
with Him only three. From which one can understand in 
the moral sense that in the most secret things we ought to 
have but little company. 

" The fourth sense is termed mystical, that is, above sense, 
supernatural ; and this it is, when spiritually one expounds a 
writing which even in the literal sense by the things signified 
bears express reference to the Divine things of eternal glory ; 
as one can see in that song of the prophet which says that 
by the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt Judea is 
made holy and free. That this happens to be true according 
to the letter is evident. Not less true is that which it means 
spiritually, that in the soul's liberation from sin (or in the 
exodus of the soul from sin) it is made holy and free in its 
powers. 

" But in demonstrating these, the literal must always go 
first, as that in whose sense the others are included, and with- 
out which it would be impossible and irrational to understand 
the others." 

THE SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THE RENAISSANCE- 
REFORMATION PERIOD. THE LATIN GRAMMAR 
SCHOOL. — During this period there developed two types of 
secondary school which persisted throughout the modern period 
and with some changes form the leading types to-day. The 
dominant type was the Latin grammar school, which took its 
place in the developing national systems as the prevailing form 
of this school. In the growing state systems it became the 
central core. It made the most general appeal of all schools, 
opened its opportunities to all who were competent to do its 
work and, at least in the opinion of educators in its day, offered 
an intellectual training which prepared for all the higher 
activities of social life. While universally planned as the Latin 
grammar school, it received different national titles : the 
Ginnasio in Italy, the Gymnasium in Germany, the Lycee in 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 37 

France, the Public School in England, the Grammar School in 
the American colonies. The term " college " was occasionally 
used in each of these countries. 

The Latin school remained the dominant type and the 
bearer of educational traditions through the modern centuries. 
It became the most stable, and socially and politically the 
most significant, part of the national school system. Its 
procedure was perfected, its method established, its curric- 
ulum fixed, its prestige rendered all powerful and its con- 
serving influence profound. For many generations, even for 
many centuries, the Latin grammar school determined the 
view of education held by the teaching profession and by the 
public in general. 

The Establishment of Schools. — The outstanding feature 
of the Renaissance period was the creation of a very general 
interest in literature, in culture in general, and in the develop- 
ment of literary schools. It may be said, on the contrary, - 
that this new interest resulted at most in the creation of a 
small group of literary men, who at best had slight influence 
on the life of the community and the course of history. Pre- 
vious to the Renaissance there had existed a literary educa- 
tion for a small group of clerks including some of the clergy 
and the secretarial profession, and a practical training in 
military activity and in forms of courtesy for the gentry. 
With the decay of feudalism and chivalry, the Renaissance 
added the literary element to the education of the nobles and 
gentry and enlarged this group capable of attaining a literary 
education to include not only all the gentry, but even selected 
boys of the burgher or of the poorer classes. It seems probable->^ 
that this proffered opportunity to the middle and lower classes, 
received with enthusiastic approval in the early Renaissance, 
later on came to be viewed with disappointment or with indiffer- 
ence by the burgher class. It was expensive ; it consumed long 
years ; it was of direct value only in limited spheres ; especially 
in commercial fields, with the development of the vernacular. 



38 Principles of Seco7idary Education 

its use declined much earlier than in other phases of social 
activity. 

But the Reformation cooperated with the Renaissance in 
fostering the linguistic type of education. Literary and 
textual studies came to have unique importance because of 
their bearing on religious belief. Scholastic ability, fostered 
by grammatical and rhetorical as well as by dialectic studies, 
was thus developed. A general dissemination of Kterary 
ability now became a thing to be desired. The ideal of life 
as a discipline held by the religious leaders coincided with both 
the concept of education and the actual practices of the school. 

Numerous formulations of the aim of these schools are to 
be found in the literature of the time. Practically all of them 
agree in including the elements of knowledge, piety, and 
eloquence. The first indicated an ability to read, write, and 
speak the Latin language and perhaps a knowledge of the 
content of Latin literature ; by piety was meant a familiarity 
with the Scriptures, the catechism, credal forms, and eccle- 
siastical ceremonies, all gained more or less directly through 
the school; by eloquence was meant an ability to use the 
Latin language effectively in public activities. 

Number and Type of Schools. — As a general result of the 
Renaissance-Reformation the control as well as the character 
of the secondary school was changed, and the number of these 
schools greatly increased. 

In most continental countries, at least in occasional in- 
stances, municipalities had assumed the support of secondary 
schools and had acquired substantial control. In England 
control by trusteeship, of fellows, usually ecclesiastics, was 
the common form. In numerous instances gilds had es- 
tablished such institutions. But the commoner form was that 
of the cathedral or collegiate church, of chantry foundation, 
or of monastic order. In all cases the church claimed the 
right of licensing teachers and usually the right of visitation. 
In substantially all cases it made good its claim. 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Ediccation 39 

The humanistic school of the early Renaissance was attached 
to the court of a royal or noble patron, or was held in the 
home of the humanist scholar, as in the cases of Barzizza and 
Guarino. The early ones in Germany were under municipal 
or noble patronage, as were some in France. In England the 
typical form continued to be that of control by independent 
boards of feoffees, fellows, or tutors. 

During the Reformation period those of Germany were 
developed into state systems, beginning with Saxony in 1528. 
The free cities continued as patrons of these schools, and 
in the state systems the municipalities were largely respon- 
sible for support and the church for supervision. In the 
Calvinistic countries — Switzerland, Holland, and Scotland 
— church and state cooperated. The provisions for these 
schools are usually found in ecclesiastical ordinances. The 
English system of control underwent but little change, though 
there was much destruction attending the Reformation ; and 
in the subsequent period there were many new foundations or 
refoundations by private patrons and by monarchs. 

It is contended that the facilities for education during the 
sixteenth century were greater than they were until very 
recent times. Mr. Leach in his study of the grammar schools 
of England in the sixteenth century estimates that in 1546 
there were at least 300 such schools. He indicates the rec- 
ords of fully 200. The population of England at that time 
is estimated at 2,500,000. This estimate would give one 
grammar school for every 8300 inhabitants. In 1865 the 
Parliamentary School Inquiry Commission found 830 second- 
ary schools of all grades, which would give one school for 
23,250 inhabitants. 

In Germany, Professor Mertz found 342 Latin schools in 
the German states during the sixteenth century. According 
to the estimated population of Germany at this time, Germany 
possessed one Latin school for every nine or ten thousand 
inhabitants. In 19 10 there were 371 gymnasia and pro- 



40 Principles of Secondary Education 

gymnasia in Prussia with population of 37,200,000, or one for 
every 100,000 inhabitants. 

Curriculum of the Latin Grammar Schools. — An abundance 
of evidence concerning the course of study of the Latin schools 
drawn from widely divergent areas is available. The most 
striking characteristics of these courses of study are their 
similarity and their narrowness or intensity. Brinsley in his 
Ludus Liter arius (16 12) refers to the universal neglect of 
arithmetic in these schools : " Insomuch, as when they (the 
people) hear the chapters named in the church, many of them 
cannot turn to them, much less to the verse. . . . You shall 
have scholars, almost ready to go to the University, who yet 
can hardly tell you the numbers of pages, sections, chapters, 
or other divisions in their books, to find what they should." 
And almost as neglected is the art of writing. In the same 
treatise he says: " You shall find very few good writers in- 
Grammar schools ; unless either they have been taught by 
scriveners, or be themselves marvelous apt hereunto, and 
very rare, or where the master doth apply himself chiefly to 
teach to write." 

If this was the case concerning the two practical subjects 
of most immediate value and availability, no further question 
needs to be raised concerning subjects as yet hardly possessing 
an organized form. Many of these advocates would rule out 
Greek ; many would add it. The vernacular has a place from 
the method point of view, but not as a recognized part of the 
course of study. 

Sturm's curriculum at Strassburg in 1565 was as follows: 

loth Class : Latin alphabet ; reading. 

9th Class : declensions ; conjugations ; irregular forms ; 
vocabulary of common speech. 

8 th Class : Latin syntax ; Epistles of Cicero with gram- 
matical construction ; exercises in style. 

7 th Class : Latin syntax ; Epistles of Cicero ; exercises 
in style ; translation of catechism into Latin. 



Historic Sketch of Seco7idary Education 41 

6th Class : Epistles of Cicero ; Martial ; Horace ; cate- 
chism; Hieronymus; begin Greek. 

5th Class : Versification; Cicero; Yergil, Eclogues ; Dona- 
tus, ex tempore translation; Pauline Epistles; Greek. 

4th Class : Cicero ; Horace ; Greek ; Pauline Epistles. 

3d Class : Latin treatises on rhetoric ; Demosthenes ; 
Homer; Pauline Epistles; double translations, Greek and 
Latin; Terence and Plautus to be acted. 

2d Class : Comparison of Latin and Greek authors ; 
logic; rhetoric; Epistle to Romans; acting of Aristophanes, 
Euripides, Sophocles, Terence, and Plautus. 

ist Class : logic, rhetoric, and oratory in Latin and Greek ; 
with more intensive study of above authors. 

The curriculum of the Protestant School at Geneva, the 
College de la Rive, 1559, was as follows : 

Classis VII. In this class the pupils will learn the letters, 
and write them to form syllables, using a Latin-French read- 
ing - book. Reading French, and afterwards Latin from a 
French-Latin catechism : drawing, and writing letters of the 
alphabet. 

VI. Declensions and conjugations are begun. Parts of 
speech learnt in French and Latin : more practice in hand- 
writing : easy Latin sentences learnt orally and repeated as 
practice in conversation. 

V. Parts of speech finished : elements of syntax : the 
Eclogues of Vergil read : Latin composition : Latin and 
French employed side by side. 

IV. Latin syntax continued. Cicero's Letters begun ; com- 
position exercises are based on these. Prosody, with reading 
of Ovid. Greek begun : declension and conjugation ; ele- 
mentary construing. 

III. Greek grammar systematically learnt. Cicero, Letters, 
De Amicitia, De Senectute: these two treatises to be turned 
into Greek. The Mneid, Csesar and Isocrates read. 

11. Chief stress laid upon reading : Livy, Xenophon, Polyb- 
ius, Herodian, and Homer. Logic begun : propositions, 
syllogism : to be illustrated from Cicero's Orations. Once 
a week the Gospel narrative in Greek. 



42 Principles of Secondary Education 

I. Melanchthon's Logic; the elements of rhetoric in con- 
nection with it; and elocution. Cicero's Orations: De- 
mosthenes (the Olynthiacs and Philippics). Homer and 
Vergil also analyzed for rhetorical purposes. Two original 
" declamationes " are prepared monthly. Once a week an 
Epistle of St. Paul or other apostle is read in Greek. 

The curriculum of the College de Guyenne at Bordeaux 
in 1572 was as follows: 

loth Class: alphabet; Pater Noster ; psalms; Ave Maria; 
Libellus Puerulorum (a little summary of inflections of regu- 
lar nouns and verbs). 

9th Class : the two manuals referred to above, Cato's 
Disticha; Cordier's Exempla. 

8th Class: Cicero's Lg^fer^; Coxdiex's C olio quia; Terence. 

7th Class : Cicero's Letters ; Latin grammar, and as above. 

6th Class : mainly as above. 

5th Class : as above ; Terence ; Ovid. 

4th Class: Cicero, Orations; ErsLSvcms, De Copia; Ovid; 
composition, Greek. 

3d Class: Cicero; Terence; Ovid; composition; dis- 
putation. 

2d Class : Cicero ; Ovid ; Vergil ; Lucan ; composition, 
declamation; rhetoric. 

ist Class: as above; Quintilian; Livy; Seneca; Justin; 
Eutropius ; Vergil ; Lucan ; Juvenal ; Horace ; and a variety 
of other classical and patristic authors. 

Method of the Grammar Schools. — As there was a 
general conformity and an elaboration of curriculum, so 
was there of method also. The teaching of Latin attained 
a perfection, or at least an efhciency, which it has not altogether 
lost. No other subject was adequately organized. The 
natural sciences were not even recognized by the schools ; 
consequently they developed no method. The literature on 
method is as extensive as that on the curriculum. But only 
the essential characteristics need to be enumerated here. The 
curricula abstracted above indicate thoroughness, procedure 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 43 

by slow steps and brief lessons, frequent reviews, and above 
all else an actual use of the forms of the Latin language in 
conversation, in writing, and in formal speech such as dec- 
lamation and oration. 

The writings of Erasmus, of Melanchthon, of Brinsley, of 
Sturm, of Ascham, of Hoole, of Corderius, of Vives, and of a 
great number of others give us details of method and many 
suggestions pertinent and valuable for the teacher of 
languages even at the present time. And yet it is evident 
that in the teaching of the alphabet and of the first steps in 
reading, they made no progress ; that grammatical forms 
were taught in the barren deductive way ; that dreary me- 
moriter work occupied a large portion of the school time. 

On the other hand, the extensive use of colloquies gave a 
vitality to the subject which it has not possessed in later cen- 
turies. Declamations and orations as well as ordinary con- 
versation made it a living speech and gave the student power 
through use. The Latin play, of either classic or contemporary 
origin, gave interest and facility in speech. Double transla- 
tion and other methods brought in the use of the vernacular, 
secured valuable training in its use, assisted in giving it liter- 
ary form, and ultimately resulted in giving it a place in the 
curriculum. Erasmus states the best contemporary view of 
method as follows : 

" But I must make my conviction clear that, whilst a 
knowledge of the rules of accidence and syntax is most neces- 
sary to every student, still they should be as few, as simple, 
and as carefully framed as possible. I have no patience with 
the stupidity of the average teacher of grammar who wastes 
precious years in hammering rules into children's heads. 
For it is not by learning rules that we acquire the power of 
speaking a language, but by daily intercourse with those 
accustomed to express themselves with exactness and re- 
finement, and by the copious reading of the best authors. . . . 
Some proficiency in expression being thus attained the student 
devotes his attention to the content of the ancient literature. 



44 Principles of Secondary Education 

It is true, of course, that in reading an author for purposes 
of vocabulary and style the student cannot fail to gather 
something besides. But I have in my mind much more than 
this when I speak of studying 'content.' For I affirm that 
with slight qualification the whole of attainable knowledge 
lies inclosed within the literary monuments of ancient Greece. 
This great inheritance I will compare to a limpid spring of 
whose undefiled waters it behooves all who truly thirst to 
drink and be restored. . . . 

" In reading the authors above mentioned for the purposes 
of vocabulary, ornament, and style, you can have no better 
guide than Lorenzo Valla. His Elegantice will show you 
what to look for and note down in your Latin reading. But 
do not merely echo his rules ; make headings for yourself as 
well. Refer also to Donatus and Diomedes for syntax. 
Rules of prosody, and the rudiments of rhetoric, such as the 
method of direct statement, of proof, of ornament, of ex- 
pansion, of transition, are important both for the intelligent 
study of authors and for composition. Such grounding in 
grammar and in style will enable you to note with precision 
such matters as these : an unusual word, archaisms, and in- 
novations, ingenuity in handling material, distinction of 
style, historical or moral instances, proverbial expressions : 
the notebook being ready to hand to record them. Notes 
of this kind should not be jotted down at haphazard, but 
carefully devised so as to recall to the mind the pith of what is 
read." 

Unfortunately the evidence goes to show that the school- 
masters did not have as clear an insight as did the great 
humanist, and that with them the means all too frequently 
became the end. The too common practice seems to have 
been that condemned in the second sentence of the above 
quotation. 

THE VARIANT TYPE: THE REALISTIC SCHOOL.— 
The variant type was more commonly known as the academy, 
though the name " school for nobles " was also used. Various 
other local titles might be used, as Edelschulen, Furstenschulen, 
seminaries, pedagogia, Particularschulen, Modistenschulen. 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 45 

Characterized by a broader and far more liberal curriculum, 
these schools attempted to prepare the children of the upper 
classes of society for the multiform duties of their stations. 
Rejecting the theory of the Latin grammar schools that a 
narrow linguistic discipline afforded a general training suffi- 
cient for all needs, they offered a study of the activities directly 
involved. 

Consequently it is through this type of schools, less stable 
b)^ far than the dominant type, that those variations have 
come which have permitted the development of educational 
ideas and practices. This type of education did not always 
crystallize into schools. In fact for a long period its adherents 
rejected the school and preferred the tutor or some other mod- 
ification of the family relationship. But through this variable 
type, no matter what particular shape it took, came the in- 
troduction of the modern languages, the natural sciences, and 
the practical semi- or non-professional studies which would 
pertain to the life of a gentleman. Consequently through 
the same source there arose much that made for the better- 
ment of method, for the broadening of the concept of educa- 
tion, and for the growing social significance of education. 

Organization of the New Type of Education. — While this 
new conception of education produced the variety of schools 
indicated above, the more general attitude of the adherents 
of this " realistic " view was in favor of the tutorial system. 
In its earlier form this education was avowedly for the chosen 
few of the aristocratic class. Its aim was to produce men of 
the world, accomplished in those arts of government and 
management of practical affairs valuable to the gentry — 
those possessing wealth, entitled to the positions of influence 
in society, and controlling its institutions. It had little regard 
for the scholar, less for the pedant, little for schools, and none 
at all for schoolmasters. 

The tutor, or a series of tutors, must possess these accom- 
plishments and impart them to his pupils. Besides the tutorial 



46 Principles of Seco7idary Education 

instruction in the home much was attained through attachment 
to courts of nobles or entourages of officials or landed gentry. 
Much more was accomplished through travel. The grand 
tour was a part of the education of every such favored youth. 
Thus were the modern languages acquired, as well as a knowl- 
edge of history, geography, the popular aspects of science 
and its practical apphcations. Agriculture, the art of fortifica- 
tion and of military affairs, some knowledge of government 
and of foreign relations, were presumed to be acquired. Ex- 
tensive reading in the modern languages took the place of pro- 
longed study of the classics. All this was to be accomplished 
through the tutor. When we recall that Vittorino, yEneas 
Sylvius, Ascham, Locke, Herbart, Froebel, were tutors and 
that a large number of others who wrote on education, as well 
as the prominent men of affairs throughout the centuries, were 
products of this type of education, its significance can be 
reahzed. In time, however, this educational procedure re- 
ceived a more definite institutional embodiment. The non- 
conformist academies of England and the real schools of Ger- 
many are the most important of these. 

The English Academies. — In the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
tury Sir Humphrey Gilbert drew up plans for an Elizabethan 
Academy, for the instruction of the youth of the court and 
the gentry. Modern languages were to replace the classics; 
mathematics in all its practical application to navigation, 
surve3dng, and mihtary affairs was given prominent place; 
government, management of estates, familiarity with public 
affairs, were to receive attention; the natural sciences were 
stressed. 

A century later John Milton again sketched an academy in 
his Tractate on Education. The prodigious range of learning 
here advocated as essential was clearly beyond ordinary at- 
tainment, but it emphasized the limitations of the accepted 
type. De Foe in 1697 extended the scope of the idea, and ad- 
vocated an academy for the education of women. 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 47 

Meanwhile Milton's idea was attaining realization, though 
in a modest form. After the restoration of the Stuart monarchy 
(1661) nonconformists were excluded from English public 
schools and universities. This created a large body of students, 
not only desiring new institutions, but interested in a type of 
education that was a variant from the old. The Act of Uni- 
formity (1662) drove nearly 2000 clergymen from their parishes. 
These furnished a ready supply of teachers. Further repres- 
sive laws made it necessary that such work of instruction as 
would bring these two classes together should be done furtively. 
Hence much of it was in the tutorial form. But from these 
conditions emerged a number of well-organized institutions 
termed academies. Their attendance was small, but their 
product was of high quality. 

The number of these institutions which attained note was 
considerable, but in the nature of the case they could not be 
welded into a system. English educational thought and in- 
tellectual life was not ripe for them as a permanent type. 
While they flourished for a hundred years, the eighteenth 
century tended to reduce all to a dead level of orthodoxy and 
mediocrity. Yet they were able to pass on the torch of in- 
spiration to America, and in England to keep the spark alive 
into the early nineteenth century with its educational awaken- 
ing. 

The German Realschulen. — The Fiirstenschulen in several 
of the German states persisted through this period. In fact 
some still flourish in the form of agricultural schools, of value 
to the landed gentry. But with the dominance of French 
culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries these so- 
called Ritteracademien became more and more artificial and 
exclusive, and with the decline of the French influence, the 
new type of German schools, either gymnasium or real school, 
took their place. The real school was the embodiment of 
this type of education for the great middle classes. In fact 
it originated in the attempt to adapt education to the lower 



48 Principles of Secondary Education 

classes. The pietist Francke in the last decade of the seven- 
teenth century founded a series of institutions centered about 
an orphan asylum in Halle. His effort was to give these 
orphan children an education of literary merit which at the 
same time would assist them in solving the practical problems 
in life. Industrial processes, printing, training in teaching, 
a practical interpretation of the sciences, and a rational 
use of the common branches were the chief means which he 
employed. The institution became the center of educational 
advance in Germany. In 1739 one of his pupils advocated 
a plan for the reorganization of a government school then 
under way, entitling the reformed institution " A Mathemat- 
ical, Mechanical and Agricultural Real School." This is said 
to be the earliest use of this term. Another pupil, Hecker, in 
1747, opened the first real school in Berlin in coordination 
with a German school and a Latin school. Its similarity to 
Franklin's plan, then in process of realization at Philadelphia, 
is very striking. Other schools of this type followed. For 
half a century, however, there was little difference between 
the programs of this type and those of the Latin gymnasia, 
except that a few realistic subjects were added. But in the 
early nineteenth century, with the strengthening of the classical 
studies and the requirement of Greek, the realistic subjects 
were minimized and the value of this X-j^^ of education for 
the common people was greatly decreased. It was necessary 
that proper technical instruction or the basis for it be given 
in a special institution. Consequently the real schools with 
a more distinctive program multiplied. 

It was not until after the middle of the nineteenth century 
that the real schools received full state recognition. By the 
Prussian regulations of 1859 the real schools of the first rank, 
requiring four years of Latin but no Greek, were accepted as 
state schools. Those of lower rank were dependent on the 
local communities. The demands of the industrial and com- 
mercial communities were not fully met until 1882 with the 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 49 

Realgymnasium, the Oberrealschule, and the Realschule. Sub- 
sequent development is given in the following chapter. 

The Influence on the Curriculum. — The very nature of 
this movement precluded any definite course of study. The 
point of view demanded a training in all those subjects which 
related to the Hfe activities of the pupil. 

The widest possible range of topics is suggested. Milton 
enumerates Latin, Greek, eloquence (rhetoric), religion, arith- 
metic, geometry, agriculture, geography (maps and globes), 
natural philosophy, physiology, astronomy, trigonometry, 
fortification, architecture, " engineering or navigation," 
physics, poetry and literature, moral philosophy, law and 
government, economics, politics, Italian, Hebrew, and possibly 
Chaldee, history, logic, and a great variety of physical exercises. 

The actual program of an eighteenth-century English 
Academy included Latin, Greek, Hebrew, the Scriptures, 
logic, history, geography, philosophy (metaphysics), divinity, 
algebra, geometry. 

Hecker's Berlin Realschule, later known as a Pedagogium 
and after 1797 as the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium, con- 
tained in its program of studies, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, 
French, religion, drawing, geography, arithmetic, algebra, 
geometry, trigonometry, history, natural history (botany, 
mineralogy), physics, and philosophy. 

Illustrative curricula could be multiplied indefinitely. But 
the principle underlying the curriculum in the views of 
these educators is evident; all the subjects then existing in 
an organized form were to be pursued. In the cases of the 
curricula given, the student body was a highly selected one, 
devoting at least nine years to the course outlined. 

Locke, De Foe, and practically all the writers on education 
of this period who are not speaking from the point of view of 
the Latin schoolmaster emphasize a list quite as extensive. 
Obviously such a program is not intended for every child, but 
as Milton says only for those " who can draw the long bow." 



50 Principles of Secondary Education 

Nor in every case were all of the subjects to be taken by every 
child favored with such an education. But in all cases it is 
the content subjects which are emphasized and especially 
those which have direct bearing on life. The organization 
of these into a school procedure was the result of a century 
more of experience. 

Influence on Method. — Method was no better formulated 
than the course of study. But this very freedom gave it 
vitality and permitted development. Locke disposes of 
this question, as most of this group would, in a very summary 
manner. " Learning may be had into the bargain, and that, 
as I think, at a very easy rate by methods that may be thought 
on." The essential point of method was that knowledge was 
for use and learning was to be largely by practice. To quote 
Locke again, speaking of this tutorial type of education, 
" This method of teaching children by a repeated practice, and 
the same action done over and over again, under the eye and 
direction of the tutor, till they have got the habit of doing it 
well, and not by relying on rules trusted to their memories, 
has so many advantages, which way soever we consider it, 
that I cannot but wonder (if ill customs could be wondered at 
in any thing) how it could possibly be so much neglected." 

Montaigne repeats this view in many forms. " A boy should 
not so much memorize his lesson as practice it. Let him re- 
peat it in his actions." Perhaps the most famous phrasing of 
this view is his saying: " To know by heart is not to know 
at all ; it is simply to keep what one has committed to his 
memory. What a man knows directly, that will he dispose of 
without turning to his book or looking to his pattern." 

The tutor, usually unconscious of their philosophical 
basis, attempted to apply in an informal way the principles 
of learning formulated by Bacon and Locke. When schools 
of this type were organized, they attempted to do the same 
thing consciously. However, the teacher with little insight 
too frequently substituted an observation of natural phe- 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 51 

nomena or a verbal familiarity with them for that knowledge 
which was demanded by the leader of thought. Comenius 
viewed educational method from this standpoint, though he 
was forced by circumstances to make his application chiefly 
to the study of Latin. The Philanthropinists, led by Basedow, 
made a more systematic attempt to reduce the new method 
to school procedure. 

The leading educational reformers, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, 
Fellenberg, and Froebel, besides those previously mentioned, 
are exponents of some phase of this variant type of secondary 
education. 

THE LATIN GRAMMAR SCHOOL IN THE AMERICAN 
COLONIES. — The Latin grammar school of Renaissance-Ref- 
ormation Europe was transplanted bodily to the American col- 
onies. In all but one of the thirteen colonies, that of Georgia, 
such schools were founded. The earliest schools in most of the 
colonies were of this type. The first attempt at a school in 
the thirteen colonies was assisted by a contribution from a 
shipload of merchants from the East Indies in 1621, and 
hence was named the East India School. The Virginia Com- 
pany proposed a Latin grammar school, but the Indian 
subjects of the Company disposed otherwise, and the massacre 
of 1622 ended this attempt. 

So far as extant records indicate, the first successful attempt, 
resulting in the grammar school at Boston in 1635, was of the 
Latin type. At least this school is the oldest permanent 
foundation. In the same year a Virginian settler by the name 
of Syms, following laudable English custom, left his estate in 
land and cattle to found a free school. But it was seven years 
before the grant was confirmed by the legislature. Subsequent 
records refer to the school as in operation, and it is claimed 
that some of this grant enters into the permanent funds of an 
existing institution. Several other bequests of this kind 
occurred in the southern colonies. Most of the resulting 
foundations were of an ephemeral character. 



52 Principles of Secondary Education 

In Massachusetts, where also numerous bequests of this 
character were made, the gifts were used to supplement 
schools established by the towns. Consequently the founda- 
tions were of a far more substantial character. The most 
important of these private foundations was made by Edward 
Hopkins, a London merchant who in 1657 bequeathed his 
estate to found a system of such schools for Connecticut. 
Schools at Hartford, Hadley, and New Haven resulted. The 
Hopkins Grammar School of New Haven still flourishes. 

In Massachusetts and Connecticut the towns built up such 
schools. The early records of many of these towns indicate 
a wonderful devotion on the part of these pioneers to the cause 
of higher education. The sacrifices which these frontier 
communities would make to maintain a Latin grammar school 
in the face of a desperate struggle with savages, famine, and 
hostile nature is indicated by the early town, court, and tax 
records. 

The legislative records of the remaining colonies indicate a 
common belief in the necessity of at least one such school in 
each colony. In some of them, however, as in New York, 
the mixture of population and the dominance of commercial 
interests delayed the establishment of such an institution 
until well into the eighteenth century. 

In several colonies, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hamp- 
shire, and Maryland, systems of such schools were set up. 
The unit area of the Maryland system and ultimately of that 
of Connecticut was the county. But the basis of the Massa- 
chusetts system, early copied by Connecticut and then by 
New Hampshire, was the town. 

The eighteenth century records of these New England 
communities indicate that this type of school was ceasing to 
serve any broad educational need. The struggle of most of 
the communities to keep the schools going, the unwillingness 
of many to make the attempt, the dwindhng attendance, all 
indicate a growing lack of adjustment between school and 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 53 

actual social needs. By the end of the eighteenth century a 
new type of secondary school had arisen, replacing the Latin 
grammar school, which had all but disappeared. Those that 
still remained were but appanages to the colleges which had 
sprung up meanwhile in most of the colonies. 
, While the colonial legislative records have much to say con- 
cerning these schools, and there is considerable supplementary 
material relating to their organization, evidence relating to 
either curriculum or method is very scanty. Method is 
indicated chiefly by the textbooks. The Latin Accidence 
of Ezekiel Cheever shows no advance upon the European 
texts. There are entries in the Boston town records of the 
middle seventeenth century indicating an attempt to introduce 
Comenian methods. 

The curriculum was even narrower than those of Europe, 
owing to the limiting circumstances of frontier life. To read 
and write Latin and possibly to speak it was the chief if not 
the sole aim. In instances the rudiments of Greek were added. 
During the eighteenth century, in the commercial centers, 
some mathematics for purposes of navigation and surveying 
was added. The requirements for admission to the colonial 
colleges do not indicate any wider preparatory training until 
after the Revolution. The broad scope proposed by FrankKn 
for the University of Pennsylvania and its preparatory school 
and by Dr. WilHam Smith for Kings College and its pre- 
paratory school do not seem to have had any permanent 
influence. The most frequent references in colonial records 
concerning the work of the grammar school relate to. the ex- 
tent to which such schools may do the work of the petty or 
elementary school. 

However circumscribed their influence, these schools did 
accomplish their great purpose, announced in the early New 
England legislation, " that learning may not be buried in 
the graves of our forefathers in church and in common- 
wealth," 



54 Principles of Secondary Education 

THE ACADEMY IN AMERICA. — The earliest proposed 
academy in America was that sketched by Benjamin FrankHn 
in 1743. Six years later the school began operation. The 
educational ideas operative are clearly indicated by the fol- 
lowing statements from Franklin's proposals : 

" As to their studies, it would be well if they could be 
taught everything that is useful and everything that is orna- 
mental. But art is long and their time is short. It is therefore 
proposed, that they learn those things that are likely to be 
most useful and most ornamental ; regard being had to the 
several professions for which they are intended." 

The institution was organized in three schools, — Latin, 
Mathematical, and English. Soon after it grew into a col- 
lege, the mathematical school was amalgamated with the new 
philosophical school, while the English school fell into com- 
parative neglect. From the troublous time of the American 
Revolution the institution emerged as a university, with the 
English school still further subordinated. Against this sub- 
ordination and neglect Franklin protested, but the academy 
had in this instance served its purpose. 

Meanwhile the general force producing the academies was 
operative in America. Nonconformity, which worked to this 
end in England, served the same purpose in America, although 
the established church here assumed a varying form in differ- 
ent localities, and although the orthodox school — the Latin 
grammar school — had never attained the commanding posi- 
tion which it reached in all European countries. Through 
the Great Awakening, which affected the middle and southern 
colonies more than it did New England, numerous institutions 
of this type were instituted. The " Log College " which pre- ' 
ceded Princeton, though never given the name of academy, 
was practically such a school. Many private institutions of 
this type, some of which assumed the name of academies, 
sprang up during the third quarter of the century. These 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 55 

all had a meager and local support and most of them an 
ephemeral existence. 

The institutions which gave standing to this new type of 
secondary schools were those founded by the Phillips family, 
the one at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1778, the other at 
Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1781. The purpose of these 
schools, as stated in the deed of gift of the earlier one, was 
" to lay the foundation of a public free school or academy for 
the purpose of instructing youth, not only in English and 
Latin grammar, writing, arithmetic, and those sciences wherein 
they are commonly taught ; but more especially to learn them 
the great end and real business of living." Further on, " it 
is again declared, that the first and principal object of this 
Institution is the promotion of true piety and virtue ; the 
second, instruction in the English, Latin, and Greek languages, 
together with writing, arithmetic, music, and the art of speak- 
ing ; the third, practical geometry, logic, and geography ; and 
the fourth, such other of the liberal arts and sciences or lan- 
guages, as opportunity and ability may hereafter admit, and. 
as the trustees shall direct." 

During the early national period a number of the states 
faced with serious effort the problem of national education. 
Political views and practices were as yet aristocratic rather 
than democratic, and the educational ideas were the same. 
Consequently the efforts were directed chiefly towards the 
building up of a type of schools which would provide for the 
education of select youth of the better-to-do strata of society, 
giving them a broad education in a variety of subjects. Edu- 
cation for the masses was, for the most part, still in the form 
of pauper schooling. 

During the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the 
first half of the nineteenth very many similar institutions were 
founded, initiated, and partially supported by private parties. 
Incorporation by act of legislature was given to numbers of 
these institutions in almost every state. In many states the 



56 Priizciples of Secondary Education 

legislature granted financial support. Sometimes, as in Mary- 
land, this was done by converting properties of earlier founda- 
tions to the uses of these new institutions ; sometimes, as in 
Pennsylvania, by making direct grants from the state treas- 
ury; sometimes, as in New York, by the establishment of 
funds for the special benefit of this type of institution. In 
several of these commonwealths there was thus built up a 
genuine state system of secondary schools. Seldom did there 
exist any unity of plan or organization in these systems, and 
only in one case, that of New York, was there any adequate 
central control and supervision. 

In the organization of the University of the State of New 
York in 1784 and 1787 these secondary institutions were made 
component parts of the university. Grants of fixed sums 
were early made and in 18 13 a permanent fund, known as the 
Literature Fund, was established for their encouragement 
and support. Thus an effective control over expenditures 
and some supervision of subjects of instruction were main- 
tained. So efhcient was this system that its most flourishing 
period did not pass until the second or third decade after the 
Civil War. At times nearly 250 such institutions received 
aid from the state. In no other state was so extensive a 
system developed. And in none did such public systems post- 
pone so long the development of the high school. In many 
states, especially the southern ones, private academies sup- 
plemented these public ones and postponed still further the 
rise of the high school. 

The characteristic feature of organization in the academy 
was its private or quasi-public control. Neither state nor 
local community exercised any control, except as the state 
might require the teaching of certain subjects or the contribu- 
tion of a certain amount from private sources before it would 
permit an institution to share in the distribution of general 
funds. Many of these institutions were merely private ad- 
venture schools. Many were supported or controlled or 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 57 

supervised by religious denominations. The stronger ones 
were usually under the control of self-perpetuating bodies of 
trustees. 

Many of the stronger academies developed into colleges and 
retained their original form of organization. In the majority 
of cases they died out with the development of a more popular 
form of education meeting the same needs. In some instances 
they grew into normal schools. The New York state system 
of normal schools had for the most part such an origin. In a 
substantial number of cases, academies developed directly 
into high schools. Thus the academies in Maryland con- 
tributed to the high school, as in New York they did to the 
normal school system. 

While it is not possible to give any quantitative estimate 
of the extent of the academy system, it is evident that these 
schools existed in great numbers, and indeed were adequate 
to the needs of the population so far as the opportunity for 
education is concerned. 

Curriculum and Method. — The characteristic educational 
feature of the academies was the breadth of the curriculum. 
As most of them depended for their chief support, even 
their very existence, upon large attendance and popular 
approval, they gave what people demanded. Consequently 
some were little more than advanced elementary schools and 
many, probably the great majority, included such subjects 
in their offering. The reaction against the Latin grammar 
school and the growth of democracy coincided with the rapid 
development of the modern sciences and the formulation of a 
great variety of new subjects of study. Many of the stronger 
of these institutions comprised two schools, the classical and 
the English. Even in the classical course of the Phillips 
Academies, geography, arithmetic, English grammar and 
declamation, algebra, and geometry were required early in 
the nineteenth century. Phillips Andover maintained for a 
time during the third decade of the century not only an Eng- 



58 Principles of Secondary Education 

lish school, but also a department for the training of teachers. 
The natural sciences received much attention. This fact 
and the emphasis on the vernacular language and literature 
were the determining features. The extent to which the 
curriculum developed is indicated by the following list of sub- 
jects reported by institutions of this type to the Regents of 
the University of the State of New York in 1837 : arithmetic, 
algebra, architecture, astronomy, botany, bookkeeping, Bib- 
lical antiquities, biography, chemistry, composition, conic 
sections, constitution of the United States, constitution of 
New York, elements of criticism, declamation, drawing, 
diahng, English grammar, evidences of Christianity, em- 
broidery, civil engineering, extemporaneous speaking, French, 
geography, physical geography, geology, plane geometry, 
analytic geometry, Greek, Grecian antiquities, German, 
general history, history of the United States, history of New 
York, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, law (constitutional, select revised 
statutes, criminal and mercantile, Blackstone's Commentaries), 
logic, leveling, logarithms, vocal music, instrumental music, 
-mapping, mensuration, mineralogy, mythology, natural his- 
tory, navigation, nautical astronomy, natural theology, or- 
thography, natural philosophy, moral philosophy, intellectual 
philosophy, penmanship, political economy, painting, per- 
spective, physiology, Enghsh pronunciation, reading, rhetoric, 
Roman antiquities, stenography, statistics, surveying, Spanish, 
trigonometry, topography, technology, principles of teaching. 
The gradual increase of the requirements for entrance to 
the American college during this period is an indication of 
the widening scope of the secondary curriculum. Arithmetic 
is the only subject besides Latin and Greek that was required 
before 1800, and that for only a few years preceding and 
in only a few cases. During the first half of the nineteenth 
century, EngHsh grammar, geography, algebra, geometry 
and ancient history were quite generally added. No doubt 
the fact that the academies were giving instruction along these 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Educatioji 59 

various lines was quite as much a reason for their appearance 
in the entrance requirements as the fact that the college au- 
thorities wished them as part of the preliminary preparation 
of students. 

One other feature of the academy due to the broadening of 
the curriculum is worthy of particular mention. That is the 
admission of girls to the privileges of higher education. While 
this feature was not characteristic of the earliest academies, 
it became almost universal with the progress of the nineteenth 
century. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, in a 
few instances even earlier, many such schools were established 
for girls only. With the founding of Troy Seminary (182 1) 
by Mrs. Willard and of Mt. Holyoke (1836) by Mary Lyon, 
a new standard was attained. The Troy school was probably 
the first institution for the higher education of women to re- 
ceive government financial support. While the character of the 
work of these institutions was equal to that of most of the 
academies for boys, in very many, especially those under 
private control, the standard of attainment was low. Here 
the ideal of education as adornment prevailed. The follow- 
ing advertisement of one such school from the late eighteenth 
century is an extreme example of this type of education : 

E. ARMSTON (or perhaps better known by the name of 
Gardner) continues the School at Point Pleasant, Norfolk 
Borough, where is a large and convenient House proper to 
accommodate young Ladies as Boarders ; at which School is 
taught Petit Point in Flowers, Fruit, Landscapes, and Sculp- 
ture, Nun's Work, Embroidery in Silk, Gold, Silver, Pearls, 
or embossed, Shading of all Kinds, in the various Works in 
Vogue, Dresden Point Work, Lace Ditto, Catgut in different 
Modes, flourishing Muslin, after the newest Taste, and most 
elegant Pattern Waxwork in Figure, Fruit, or Flowers, Shell 
Ditto, or grotesque, Painting in Water Colours and Mezzo- 
tinto ; also the Art of taking off Foliage, with several other 
Embellishments necessary for the Amusement of Persons of 
Fortune who have Taste. Specimens of the Subscriber's 



6o Principles of Secondary Education 

Work may be seen at her House, as also of her Scholars; 
having taught several years in Norfolk, and elsewhere, to 
general Satisfaction. She flatters herself that those Gentle- 
men and Ladies who have hitherto employed her will grant 
their further Indulgence, as no Endeavours shall be wanting 
to complete what is above mentioned, with a first Attention 
to the Behaviour of those Ladies intrusted to her Care. 

Reading will be her peculiar Care ; Writing and Arithmetick 
will be taught by a Master properly qualified; and, if de- 
sired, will engage Proficients in Musick and Dancing. 

In method also there was some development. At least 
these institutions broke away from the rigid and formal pro- 
cedure of the Latin schools. They showed little aversion to 
innovation and they at least experimented with all the novel 
educational methods imported from Europe. Many of them 
adopted the Lancasterian monitorial plan of instruction. 
Somewhat later the Fellenberg scheme of manual labor had 
wide vogue. Pestalozzian methods were embodied in the 
new tfxts, and vitalized instruction. The natural sciences 
were taught through demonstration by the teacher with 
elaborate paraphernalia. Attainments in the vernacular were 
displayed through declamation, school exhibition, and public 
oration. The test of '' use " was applied far more generally 
than the present-day public would tolerate. Even the educa- 
tion of accomplishments had this to be said in its favor, — 
the accomplishments had to be " shown off." 

Much greater freedom was introduced not only in choice 
of subjects, but in method ; and a closer correlation of studies 
with actual needs and experiences was attempted. The fact 
that a great proportion of academic students not passing on to 
college entered the teaching profession made for the use of 
the subjects studied in a more vital manner than had been 
previously attained. 

THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL. —As the Latin 
grammar school was the expression of European orthodoxy 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Edtication 6i 

and conservatism, and the academy of the dawning nation- 
alism of America, as yet cast in aristocratic rather than demo- 
cratic form, so the high school is the first full expression of 
American democracy in this phase of education. It was sup- 
ported by taxation, with no tuition fees ; it was controlled by 
public ofiicials ; it offered a wide course of study ; it was artic- 
ulated with the lower and the advanced phases of education. 

Origin. — The origin of the term " high school " in the 
American significance is not clear. The term '• higher school " 
in its European significance usually indicates all institutions 
above the elementary grade. It had been applied in a few 
instances to particular institutions, notably the Edinburgh 
High School. This Scottish institution, essentially an acad- 
emy, employed the monitorial system of instruction and had 
achieved an international reputation. It is probable that 
this school gave its name to the American institution. The 
first institution of the new type to be founded in the states 
was opened in Boston in 182 1 under the name of the English 
Classical School. It was avowedly a compliment to the 
Latin School of long standing, and was to provide an educa- 
tion in advance of the English grammar schools, recently 
developed as a continuation of the primary school for those 
boys who did not intend to proceed to college. The name 
" high school " was not applied in public documents until 
1824. Meanwhile in New York City an educational leader, 
John Griscom, had been agitating for a high school. He had 
published in 1820 a work containing a description of the Edin- 
burgh High School. In 1825 under his leadership an incor- 
porated private institution was opened under the name of 
" Monitorial High School." 

The general impetus which gave rise to the high schools 
worked through three distinct channels. One of these was 
the monitorial scheme of Lancaster and of Bell. This was a 
very popular plan for the establishment of free schools, adopted 
quite generally during the early decades of the nineteenth cen- 



62 Principles of Secondary Education 

tury. The great merit claimed for the scheme was that it 
made free education for all possible by making it cheap. This 
was accomplished by having the older boys teach those less 
advanced. Lancaster argued that in this way one master 
could teach looo boys and claimed to have attained this 
ideal in his own experience. The first public school building 
erected in New York City in 1809 contained a room for 500 
boys. In England Lancaster had " educated " boys by this 
plan at an annual cost per capita of $1.25. The early public 
schools of New York City, as well as those of many other 
American communities, were on this plan. It was introduced 
also into many academies. With the development of the 
schools of the Free School Society of New York City, advanced 
grades were added, still taught by monitors. When the ad- 
vanced grades were separated for the special purpose of train- 
ing monitors, they became essentially a high school. This 
institution, however, did not thrive, and in New York City 
the form which the secondary school took was that of the 
Free Academy. Meanwhile, De Witt Clinton, the leading 
patron of the elementary system of monitorial schools in the 
city, was now governor, advocating the establishment of a 
system of monitorial high schools under state supervision and 
with both state and local public support. One was to be 
located in each county. But the academy system, with all 
of its local influences, was too strongly intrenched, and the 
general aversion to taxation for educational purposes was 
too strong, for the proposed scheme to materialize. 

Nevertheless, the monitorial scheme, by demonstrating 
the possible cheapness of public education, led many com- 
munities to give assistance to private or incorporated acade- 
mies when run on this plan and to develop the higher grades 
of the elementary school when based on public support. 
This tended to force the development of high schools, though 
the differentiation from the grades was slow. 

A much more distinct origin of the high schools was through 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 63 

the free academy. When the pubHc contribution to acade- 
mies became a more important factor in their support than 
the private contributions, or even than the tuition, the public 
began to demand a voice in the management of the. institution 
and the removal of restrictions on its privileges. The former 
was occasionally secured through some right of appointment 
to the board of trustees, the latter usually by the removal 
of tuition requirements from students living in the area con- 
tributing by taxation. Numerous academies were thus 
transformed. The only step necessary to make these in- 
stitutions high schools in the modern sense was to transfer 
their control to an elected board of trustees. This step was 
taken with the Free Academies such as developed in New 
York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other cities. These were 
high schools in all essentials. Later on they developed into 
City Colleges — though the reality was usually not attained 
until long after the name — or were merged into the city 
system under the one school board. 

The most important force in the development of high 
schools, at least from the numerical viewpoint, though at 
the same time the least conspicuous, was the Union School 
District. During the late thirties and the two following 
decades — the so-called " Horace Mann Period " — the de- 
fects of the district school system had become conspicuous 
and the educational needs of the democratic population ob- 
vious. The effort to meet these needs, during this period or 
a little later, developed in almost every state a tendency 
toward the grouping of these small districts into larger units. 
This resulted in the union school. Naturally this unification 
took place first in the cities and towns. The advantages 
becoming obvious, villages demanded the same privilege. As 
this amalgamation proceeded a graded system developed 
which culminated in all larger units of population where the 
academy was not intrenched in a high school course full or 
rudimentarv. 



64 Principles of Secondary Education 

Development of the High School System. — The course of 
development through the union school may be illustrated in 
New York State. Beginning in 1837, there were numerous 
acts of the legislature giving union school systems to the 
smaller cities of the state. Most of these were free, several 
included a high school. In 1853 a statute was enacted 
giving the privilege of establishing such systems without 
special act. A few years later an amendment required all 
such schools to be free. The peculiar relations of the State 
Regents to the Superintendents of Common Schools in this 
state together with the dominant influence of the acade- 
mies permitted no early or distinct development of the high 
school. 

The state which most clearly shows the development of 
the high school is Massachusetts, as New York shows that 
of the academy. The basis of the development is found 
in the law of 1827, though the term " high school " did 
not come into general use until a decade or so later. The 
portion of the law which relates to secondary education is as 
follows : 

" And every city, town, or district, containing five hundred 
families, or householders, shall be provided with such teacher 
or teachers for such term of time as shall be equivalent to 
twenty-four months, for one school in each year, and shall 
also be provided with a master of good morals, competent 
to instruct, in addition to the branches of learning aforesaid, 
the history of the United States, bookkeeping by single 
entry, geometry, surveying, and algebra; and shall employ 
such master to instruct a school, in such city, town, or dis- 
trict, for the benefits of all the inhabitants thereof, at least 
ten months in each year, exclusive of vacations, in such con- 
venient place, or alternately at such places in such city, town, 
or district, as the said inhabitants, at their meeting in March, 
or April, annually, shall determine; and in every city, or 
town, containing four thousand inhabitants, such master 
shall be competent, in addition to all the foregoing branches, 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 65 

to instruct the Latin and Greek languages, history, rhetoric, 
and logic." 

This is essentially a union school ; that is, a town school 
superposed on the district schools. It is not created by 
the union of old districts but is a revival of the old town 
school, now of a higher grade than the constituent district 
schools. 

Two grades of high schools were defined in this law, the 
higher one distinguished by the addition of Latin, Greek, 
logic, and rhetoric to the curriculum. This law, with sub- 
sequent amendments, developed the first state system of 
high schools. Some of these amendments, especially that of 
1840, were reactionary and lowered the standard. But by 
the Civil War period a comprehensive and effective system of 
high schools had been built up. In 1840 the term " high 
school " first appeared on the statute books. While there 
was no legal definition of the term, the following quotation 
or extract from the Annual Report of the General School 
Committee of Manchester in 1849 gives an excellent state- 
ment of the popular view. 

" A high school is no ambiguous thing. It is a term that 
possesses an exact and well-defined meaning. It is neither 
a primary or a grammar school, nor a compound of the two, 
without any regard to age or attainment, but a school dis- 
tinct by itself, to which there is no access, except through the 
two first. Thus high school has been defined for years past 
and this definition of them is recognized in our revised statutes 
(1835) and wherever schools are spoken of ' for the whole 
town,' as the saying is." 

It has been frequently stated that there was no system of 
high schools in this country before the Civil War, and that 
no more than fifty or sixty scattered institutions existed. 
True it is that the use of the term was not yet general and* the 
course of study not definitely fixed, yet by the standards we 
use to-day, as well as by those of the earlier period, these state- 
ments seem to be a gross underestimate. In his study of the 
written reports of the Massachusetts towns, Dr. Inglis gives 
the following summary : 



66 



Principles of Secondary Education 



Census 


Required 
BY Law 


Established 

according to 

Law 


Percentage 

Meeting the 

Law 


Established 
BUT NOT Re- 
quired 


Total 
Established 


1830 . . 
1840 . . 
1850 . . 
i860 . . 


35 

44 

76 

128 


3 

16 
42 
86 


8.6 
36.4 

55-3 
67.2 




2 

5 

16 


3 
18 

47 
102 



Meanwhile the establishment of academies had declined. 
During the decennium 1 821-1830 there were three high 
schools and thirty-two academies established. During that 
from 185 1 to i860 there were sixty-five high schools estab- 
lished and nineteen academies incorporated. 

The same forces were at work in other states during this 
period, commonly through a district union school law. The 
usual procedure was for a city to obtain through special 
enactment the privilege of establishing a union school com- 
prising the higher grades. Then in the course of time the 
legislature would extend the privilege by general enactment. 
Thus the state of Ohio passed such a permissive law in 1848 ; 
Iowa in 1849 \ New York in 1853 ; Michigan in 1857. Un- 
like the Massachusetts plan, the compulsory feature was 
usually attained long after. 

The right was often given to communities to maintain out 
of public funds schools whose benefits could be shared only 
by a privileged part of the community. Popular approval of 
the public high school came quite slowly in many regions. 
The courts upheld the right to establish such schools, the 
locus situ being the Kalamazoo case in the Michigan courts 
of 1874.1 

There were many minor steps in the building up of the high 
school system, some of which have not yet been taken in many 
commonwealths. The most important of these steps relate 

^ See Cubberley and Elliott, Source Book in State School Administration. 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 67 

to the extension of the privilege of secondary education to 
every child. This is attempted through several schemes ; by 
state payment of tuition, by free transportation, and by sub- 
sidizing poorer communities. The most significant of these 
movements is the very recent one of developing the rural 
high schools by a combination of all these means. The 
broadening of the curriculum and the improvement of method, 
together with this development of the rural high schools, 
have brought about the most striking feature in the present 
situation, namely, the great increase in the number of high 
schools and in their attendance. In the decade between 1900 
and 1910 the attendance increased over 60 per cent. The most 
recent report of the United States Bureau of Education gives 
the number of high schools in the United States (191 2-13) 
as 13,263 and the number of pupils attending as 1,246,827. 

Next to this quantitative increase in importance, the changes 
in curriculum and method are the most significant. There 
was no essential difference in curriculum between the early 
high school and the academy contemporaneous with it. The 
chief distinction between these two types of secondary school 
lay in organization and form of support. Public maintenance 
tended to reduce the number of subjects offered and public 
control and responsibility tended to greater unity in the curric- 
ulum. But the high school made no great advance upon 
the academy. The Massachusetts law of 1827, previously 
quoted, gives the state curriculum. Many schools established 
under this law did not offer all of these subjects. Many 
offered others in addition. For example, the curriculum of 
the English High School of Boston in the year the law was 
enacted included fourteen subjects over and above those re- 
quired. In smaller high schools the offering was naturally 
much more meager. 'But however the sections of the country 
or the institutions of the same section varied in their offering, 
the principles involved in the selection did not change. It 
was not until the last quarter of the century that educators 



68 Principles of Secondary Education 

became conscious of the great problems involved in the selec- 
tion and organization of proper curricula for secondary schools 
and in the elaboration of appropriate methods. And the 
new century had dawned before this consciousness spread to 
the public. The earlier realization found its expression in the 
Report of the Committee of Ten in 1893. The later expresses 
itself in the growing demand for a broadened and intensified 
curriculum, a vitalized method, and an organization which 
shall bring to every child the possibility of attaining those 
elements of culture essential to the proper use of life's leisure, 
and those practical elements essential to vocational and 
economic success. 

The remainder of this volume is devoted to the statement 
of these problems and to the presentation of ways in which 
they have been or may be met. 

PROBLEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What similarity is there between the situation in early Greek 
civilization and our own times, so far as the elements of the situation 
determine the problems of secondary .education ? 

2. How far do we find in the theory of education as formulated by 
the Greek philosophers elements of the problem as stated by present- 
day writers ? 

3. To what extent is , the relation between the practical and the 
theoretical types of schools in Greece the same that we have to- 
day ? 

4. To what extent did the grammatical and rhetorical training of 
Greek, Roman, or medieval schools meet their social needs ? 

5. Have these subjects the same educative value now as then ? 

6. Of what value to the modern secondary school teacher or adminis- 
trator is Quintilian's treatise ? 

7. What were the chief Colloquies used as texts in the Latin grammar 
schools of the post-Renaissance period? What were their merits as 
texts ? What principles of method were involved ? 

8. What was the value of the Latin play from the point of view of 
method ? What was its educative value in other respects ? 

9. What were the merits and demerits of the study of Plautus and 
Terence ? Of Cicero ? 



Historic Sketch of Secondary Education 69 

10. What were the chief characteristics of the extreme classicism 
called Ciceronianism ? Make a study of the Ciceronian controversy. 

11. In comparing the curricula of the Latin grammar schools of the 
sixteenth century with those of the classical schools of the early or 
middle nineteenth century and with those of the present time, what 
progress is to be found ? 

12. In the writings of the schoolmen of the sixteenth century, make 
a comparative study of curricula. Of method. 

13. What were the limitations of the free schools of England, judged 
from the point of view of their actual service to contemporary society, 
or from that of modern times ? 

14. Make a comparative study of the various treatises on education 
during the Renaissance and the subsequent period, either of the domi- 
nant Latin school type or of the variant type, in regard to purpose, or- 
ganization, method, of secondary education, or in regard to any one 
subject of the curriculum. 

15. What points of value for modern school work are to be found 
in the Jesuit system regarding organization, method, discipline, curric- 
ulum? 

16. Trace the development of any one subject in the secondary 
curriculum. 

17. Trace the method of study used in any one subject. 

18. What are the respective merits of private and public or of tutorial 
and school education ? 

19. Trace the development of the academies in any one state. 
20,. Trace the development of the high schools in any one state. 

21. What historical factors are involved in the present high school 
situation in any one state ? 

REFERENCES 

Abelson, Paul. Seven Liberal Arts. New York, 1906. 

Adamson, John William. Pioneers of Modern Edtication. Cambridge, 

1905. 
Bolton, Frederick Elmer. Secoiidary School System of Germany. 

New York, 1900,. 
Brown, Elmer Ellsworth. Making of our Middle Schools. New York, 

1903. 
Secondary Education. Albany, 1900. 
Farrington, Frederic Ernest. French Secondary Schools. New 

York, 1910. 
Fick, R. Auf Deutschlands Hohen Schulen. Berlin, 1900. 



Jo Principles of Secondary Education 

Graves, Frank Pierrepont. History of Education. 3 vols. New- 
York, 1909. 
Inglis, Alexander James. Rise of the High School in Massachusetts. 

New York, 191 1. 
Leach, Arthur Francis. Educational Charters and Documents, 598 

to 1909. Cambridge, 191 1. 
English Schools at the Reformation. Westminster, 1896. 
Lexis, W. Die Reform des hoherer Sclmlwesens in Pruessen. Berlin, 

1904. 
Mertz, George Karl. Des Schulwesen der Deutschen Reformation 

im 16. Jahrhundert. Heidelberg, 1902. 
Monroe, Paul. Textbook in the History of Education. New York, 

1906. 
Montmorency, J. E. G. de. State Intervention in English Education. 

Cambridge, 1902. 
Paulsen, Friedrich. Geschichte des Gelehrten Unterrichts aiif den 

Deutschen Schulen und Universitdten. Leipsig, 1885. 
German Education, Past and Present. New York, 1908. 
Russell, James Earl. German Higher Schools. New York, 1899. 
Watson, Foster. English Grammar Schools to 1660. Cambridge, 1908. 
Woodward, William Harrison. Desiderius Erasmus concerning the 

Aim and A(^fh,od of Education. Cambridge, 1904. 
Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance, 1 400-1 600. 

Cambridge, 1906. 
Vittorino da Feltre and other Humanist Educators. Cambridge, 1897. 
Cyclopedia of Education. Free Schools, Endowed Schools, Grammar 

Schools, Colloquies, Latin Language and Literature, articles on 

various national systems and various academic subjects. 
See the bibliographies in the above books and those appended to the 

Cyclopedia articles mentioned above, and to the Cyclopedia articles 

on the various national systems. 



CHAPTER III 

SECONDARY EDUCATION IN EUROPE 

FRANCE 

POSITION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION ABROAD. 

— Secondary education has never been adequately and ac- 
ceptably defined. In the United States, we usually arrive at 
a working definition by a method of exclusion, segregating the 
field of elementary education at one end of the scale, and 
higher education, as represented by colleges and universities, 
at the other. The first deals with the absolutely essential 
educational processes, and the second with the purely cultural 
and professional aspects, while the loosely delimited inter- 
mediate area is commonly accepted as covering the field of 
secondary education. In England and on the continent, even 
this approximation is inadequate, for broadly speaking, the 
secondary school does not form a transition stage between the 
elementary school and the university. Although the sec- 
ondary school is preparatory to the university, it is not neces- 
sarily, or even generally for the mass of the pupils, comple- 
mentary to the lower school. It is distinctly a school for the 
classes, and not for the masses. For the major part of the 
pupils of the secondary schools, then, the three R's are taught 
either in elementary classes attached to these schools as in 
France and Germany, or in special detached schools as in Eng- 
land. In this last-named country, only a relatively small 
number of the secondary school pupils receive their ground- 
ing in the fundamentals in the regular elementary schools, 
and the great majority of these cases, aside from the scholar- 
ship holders, is found in the smaller towns and rural districts 

71 



72 Prhiciples of Secondary Education 

where the educational facilities are naturally limited, and where 
the traditional class prejudice or caste feeling is perhaps less 
strong. In the last analysis, on the continent at least, it is 
the financial position of the parent that is the large determining 
factor in deciding whether the child shall go to a primary school 
or to a secondary school. Universal tuition fees in these for- 
eign secondary schools operate to preserve the exclusiveness 
of this intellectual aristocracy. Appreciation of the social 
barrier between elementary and secondary schools is an abso- 
lute prerequisite to any discussion of the position of the sec- 
ondary school abroad. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM OF SECONDARY 
SCHOOLS. — Of the four great civilized nations of the world, 
France has the oldest system of secondary schools, for the 
ancient College d'Harcourt, the first of a long line of illustrious 
institutions of secondary grade, was founded away back in 
1 1 80, thus even antedating the venerable University of Paris 
itself. In those early days, all schools were under clerical 
control, with the seven liberal arts still influencing the cur- 
riculum. Even at that time, the arts work of the university 
was given in the colleges, or secondary schools, a characteristic 
that still persists to a very marked degree in the secondary 
schools of to-day. The Ratio studiorum of the Jesuits (1599) 
embodied the most advanced pedagogical theory and practice 
of the time, and served as a model for the organization of the 
secondary school program of studies for nearly two centuries. 
Indeed its influence was indirectly felt almost to within the 
memory of men now alive, not only in France, but in Ger- 
many, England, and the United States as well. It represented 
the quintessence of humanistic culture, and embraced little out- 
side classic and particularly Latin authors. The expulsion of 
the Jesuits from France, and the subsequent suppression of 
the order eliminated the form, but not the substance of Jesuit 
influence in the secondary school program of studies. Hu- 
manistic domination of the school program experienced but a 



Secondary Education in Europe 73 

temporary reverse in the great social and political upheaval of 
the French Revolution. The succeeding " central schools " 
(i 795-1802) which reflected the modern temper of the revolu- 
tionary governments exerted only a passing influence, but it 
was, nevertheless, a precursor of what the nineteenth century 
should bring to pass. With the tightening hold of Napoleon 
upon the political organization of the nation, the old order 
of things educational rose phoenix-like from the ashes of the 
blasted hopes of popular self-government. The present 
administrative organization of French secondary education 
dates from the Napoleonic reforms of 1802 and 1808, but the 
subject matter of the school curriculum throughout the nine- 
teenth century was largely that of the old regime. In fact as 
late as 1821, a ministerial order required the instruction in 
philosophy to be given in Latin, and it was not until nine years 
later (1830) that the examination in philosophy for the bach- 
elor's degree could be held in French, Such was the persistence 
of the humanistic tradition. 

From the educational point of view, the nineteenth century 
in France was marked by the struggle of two sets of conflicting 
forces : humanism versus realism, and the church versus the 
state. Both of these began long before the beginning of the 
century, but during its closing years the strife became most 
acute. In each instance the newcomer won out, but only 
after a terrific contest. In the second, the state has absolutely 
vanquished its opponent, the passage of the law suppressing 
the teaching congregations (1904) and the abrogation of the 
Concordat (1905) marking the closing acts of what has 
proved a most dramatic struggle, and ending forever the 
domination of the church in matters educational. In the 
first instance, the old classical education has been forced to 
share its time-honored prerogatives with its younger rival, 
and realistic culture is officially at least on an exact equality 
with humanistic culture. The new program of 1902 es- 
tablished this parity. 



74 Principles of Secondary Education 

THE SYSTEM. — Centralization of Control. — French 

education is noteworthy for the high degree of centralization 
that prevails throughout the system. This results in a stand- 
ardization of administrative details of organization, of quaU- 
fications of teachers, and of program, but not of method. 
Most matters of control of secondary schools are regulated 
from the ministry in Paris, while the responsibihty for seeing 
that these regulations are carried out devolves upon the 
rectors (one for each academy), and the academy inspectors 
(one for each department). Local or communal opinion en- 
joys practically no recognition on the purely professional side 
of secondary school administration. Such affairs are deter- 
mined by the central educational authorities. The program 
of studies is drawn up, the syllabus of work is arranged, the 
quaHfications of teachers are prescribed, the schools are in- 
spected, and the leaving examinations are held by the central 
authorities, or their accredited representatives, the rectors 
and their deputies. Indeed, the control exercised by the 
educational department at Paris over the whole of France is 
as real as that exerted by any city school authorities in this 
country over the schools of their own municipality. Such a 
degree of centraHzation would be highly distasteful even in 
the most extreme of our American commonwealths, but it 
seems to succeed very satisfactorily in France. It is one of 
the legacies that Napoleon left to the French people. 

Secondary Education is nowhere compulsory in France. — 
The citizens of a given community decide whether or not they 
care to assume responsibihty for a school of secondary grade, 
which in every instance, whether or not it is a state school 
includes the construction, equipment, and maintenance of a 
suitable building, but after this everything else is determined 
for them automatically. Such centraHzation naturally has 
the defects of its merits. Undoubtedly it tends to strengthen 
the weaker schools, and theoretically at the same time to 
retard the most progressive. Unquestionably, it does prac- 



Secondary Educatio7i in Europe 75 

tically eliminate individual experimentation and initiative 
in France, but the general standard is so high and the central 
control so uniformly sane that this repression is not seriously 
felt. Differentiation is recognized in the two general types of 
secondary schools. 

Tjrpes of Schools. — According to the law of 1802, " every 
school estabHshed by the communes or conducted by private 
individuals wherein are taught French, Latin, the first prin- 
ciples of geography, of history, and of mathematics, will be 
considered as a secondary school." This sentence gives us 
the origin of the communal college. The lycees, devoting 
themselves primarily to Latin and mathematics, were sup- 
ported from the pubHc treasury, and so formed a class of insti- 
tutions somewhat higher than the communal colleges. This 
old distinction persists to-day, and the nomenclature of a 
century ago is still retained. The lycee is a state school, while 
the college is a local institution. The outward distinction 
between the two resolves itself into a question of the source 
of the teachers' salaries. In the case of the lycee, the state 
provides this money, while in the case of the college, the com- 
munity pays the bills. In any event the other expenses must 
be borne by the community. Nominally these two classes 
of schools are of equal rank, but practically the lycee is of a 
higher type. Nevertheless, the official program of studies 
is in each instance the same. The standards of the teaching 
force in the state schools are appreciably higher than in the 
colleges, so that the best teachers are naturally attracted there 
on account of the advantages of living in larger towns, the 
better salaries, and the increased social prestige attached to an 
appointment in a state school. Practically the difference 
between these two types of schools is quite comparable to that 
existing in this country between a metropolitan high school 
and a high school in a city of twenty thousand inhabitants. 

Unrest in Secondary Education. — Within the past twenty- 
five years, probably no department of education has been 



76 Principles of Secondary Education 

beset with more unrest and at the same time been the subject 
of more careful and systematic study than the field of second- 
ary education. Germany took the initiative in the Con- 
ference of 1890 which bore fruit in the reform of 1892. This 
latter year saw the appointment of the Committee of Ten of 
the National Education Association of the United States, 
whose work is too well known to need further elaboration 
here. England followed suit two years later by appointing a 
Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Mr. James Bryce 
to make an exhaustive study of the condition of secondary 
education in that country. The voluminous report emanating 
from this body contained many recommendations that have 
since been incorporated into English law, the most important 
of them resulting in the present school organization under the 
control of the Board of Education (1900). The previous 
year saw France undertaking a similar piece of work through 
the medium of the Ribot Parliamentary Committee. Ger- 
many had another Conference at work in 1900, and this re- 
sulted in the new program of 190 1. In the meantime, the 
French commission was gathering evidence from every source 
that seemed to promise any contribution to the solution of the 
vexed problem of secondary education. The result was the 
reorganization of secondary education in 1902. These various 
national inquiries and reforms followed so closely one after 
the other that international suggestion and initiative can 
scarcely have exerted much influence. They represent rather 
the outcropping of a common spirit of unrest, a feeling of dis- 
satisfaction with the existing order. The investigations in 
England and France were productive of more significant edu- 
cational changes than those in either Germany or the United 
States, those in the first-named country being more specifically 
confined to educational organization, and those in the second 
being fundamental reorganizations of programs of studies. 

Primary and Secondary Schools Defined — All this paves 
the way for a more careful differentiation of the fields of 



Secondary Education in Europe 77 

primary and secondary education than has thus far been 
vouchsafed. Although the terms " primary " and " second- 
ary " are perfectly well known to every student of American 
education, the connotation attached to them in France 
is quite distinct from anything with which we are familiar. 
In the United States, the relationship between the two 
lower degrees of the educational scheme is a latitudinal 
relationship, with one system superimposed upon the other, 
whereas in France the two systems exist side by side, or rather 
there is a longitudinal relationship existing between them. 
In the United States, the youngster who goes to school at six 
or eight years of age enters an elementary or primary school. 
After completing the seven or eight years' course of the lower 
school, he passes on to a higher grade of school known as a 
secondary school. The lower school course is completed before 
he enters the higher school. The line of cleavage between the 
two types of schools is quite distinct and fixed, with relatively 
little overlapping. In France, on the other hand, the pupil 
who enters school at six years of age or younger may go to a 
primary school, or he may go to a secondary school. Both 
are state founded, state supported, state directed, and state 
inspected. The former is a free school ; the latter is a fee 
school. For the first two years, the programs followed are 
substantially the same, differences of subject matter coming 
to light in the succeeding three years in the form of the modern 
language instruction that is found in the elementary classes of 
the secondary schools. The differentiation between the two 
t3;pes of schools is social, or speaking broadly, economic. 
Fundamentally, then, there is a sociological motive at work 
which determines whether the parent shall send his child to a 
primary or to a secondary school. The pupils of the secondary 
school look forward to a professional or directive career, while 
those in the elementary school can seldom rise above the posi- 
tion of non-commissioned officers in the great industrial, 
commercial, or agricultural army. 



78 Principles of Secondary Education 

Characteristics of the Course. — The French program of 
1902, which has since been modified in only minor details, 
presents certain unique features, among them, its flexibility, 
the opportunity afforded for the pupil to change from one 
course to another without serious loss of time, and the con- 
scious effort to meet the leaving-school problem, made possible 
by the concentric-circle method of instruction. Election of 
parallel and equivalent courses, a novel feature in French 
programs, is definitely attributable to the influence of Ameri- 
can education, but in France it has been worked out in a more 
satisfactory way than is ordinarily found in this country. 
French secondary education proper begins when the boy 
is about eleven years of age, although as has already been 
indicated, the preKminary training is generally obtained in the 
elementary classes attached to the same school. Up to the 
beginning of the secondary course, it is perfectly possible for 
the pupil to pass from the primary to the secondary school 
system practically at will, but once beyond this point it is next 
to impossible to make the transition. 

In the terms of the official decree of 1902, " secondary in- 
struction is given in a course of study which extends over seven 
years, and is divided into two cycles : one of four years, and 
one of three years." France thus distinguishes between a 
secondary school and secondary instruction,, the former being 
applied to a class institution which receives the boy at the 
time when his schooling begins and prepares him to enter the 
university, and the latter referring to the instruction given 
during the last seven years of that period, normally from the 
eleventh to the eighteenth year. 

At the moment when this secondary instruction begins, two 
paraUel courses open out before the lad, one with Latin 
(division A), and the other without Latin (division B). Save 
for the exception just noted, the subjects of instruction in the 
two courses are the same, although the time devoted to Latin 
in division A is occupied by additional hours in French and 



Secondary Education in Europe 79 

science in division B. The common subjects of instruction 
are French, modern languages (English or German), history 
and geography, mathematics, natural science, and drawing. 
Two years later, division A pupils may elect Greek, giving up 
two hours of modern language and drawing therefor. An- 
other two years sees them at the end of the first cycle, four 
years from the starting point. This forms a natural break 
just about midway of the course and rounds out a complete 
though elementary circle of intellectual achievement. If the 
pupil is compelled to drop out here, he can do so without feel- 
ing that he is leaving a piece of work half done. He can carry 
away with him a definite unity of ideas. He has covered in 
cursory fashion the whole range of the national literature, 
paying considerable attention to the classic writers ; he has 
studied from one to three foreign languages, according to the 
course he has selected, for from two to four or more years ; 
he has completed elementary arithmetic, with perhaps some 
more advanced mathematics ; he has been introduced to 
scientific lore ; he has studied the geography of the whole 
world ; he is f amihar with the great movements of history 
from the very beginning down to 1889 ; and he has had two 
years of elementary moral instruction, introduced to supply 
the place of the former reHgious teaching ; in other words, 
he has touched practically all the subjects of secondary school 
study. The advantage of this scheme over the old program 
of studies, which was laid out upon a seven-year basis, must be 
readily apparent. 

At this point, an entire realignment is possible, for four 
parallel courses present themselves : section A, a strictly 
classical course, with both Latin and Greek ; section B, a 
Latin-modern-language course; section C, a Latin-science 
course ; and section D, a science-modern-language course. 
Two years later, the pupil must choose again, this time be- 
tween philosophy and mathematics. In this highest form 
several of the subjects are relegated to the elective group, 



8o Principles of Secondary Education 

while the major part of the time is devoted to philosophy, 
history, physical and natural sciences in the philosophy form, 
and in the parallel mathematics form to those same subjects 
together with mathematics and modern languages. In the 
latter class, nineteen hours per week are devoted to realistic 
subjects as against only about nine hours for the humanistic 
group. Reference to the complete program of studies which 
will be found on the following pages will clear up many ques- 
tions with regard to the distribution of subjects. 

It must not be forgotten that this does not represent the 
whole work of the French secondary school, for most of the 
important lycees have graduate courses on the letters or the 
science side, known respectively as " higher rhetoric " or 
" special mathematics," which train boys for the higher 
normal school or some one of the various engineering schools 
that are supported by the government. Entrance to these 
schools is entirely through competitive examination, and 
many of the foremost intellectual leaders of France during 
the last century have issued through their portals. 

FRENCH SECONDARY SCHOOLS — BOYS 

WEEKLY PROGRAM — REGULATIONS OF 1902-1912 

Preparatory Division 
I Year II Year 

Hrs. Hrs. 

French 9 French 9 

Moral and civic instruction ^ Moral and civic instruction ^ 

Writing 2^ Modern languages .... 2 

Simple history stories . . . i Writing 2| 

Geography i^ Simple history stories ... i 

Arithmetic 3 Geography I5 

Nature study i Arithmetic 3 

Drawing i Nature study i 

Singing i Drawing i 

Singing i 

Total 20 Total 20 

1 This instruction will be given in connection with the instruction in French, 
history, and geography, and is included in the time assigned to these subjects. 



Secondary Education in Europe 8i 

Elementary Division 

{Eighth and seventh forms) 

Hrs. 

French 7 

Moral and civic instruction ^ 

Modern languages 2 

Writing i 

History and geography 3 

Arithmetic 4 

Nature study i 

Drawing i 

Singing j^ 

Total 20 

^ This instruction will be given in connection with the instruction in French, 
history, and geography, and is included in the time assigned to these subjects. 

First Cycle 
(Length, four years ; from the sixth to the third form inclusive) 



Division A 



Division B 



Sixth Form 

Hrs. 



French and Latin . . . . 10 French 

Modern languages .... 5 

History and geography . . 3 

Arithmetic 2 

Natural science i 

Drawing 2 



Total 



23 



Hrs. 



Modern languages .... 5 

History and geography . . 3 

Arithmetic 3 

Natural science 2 

Drawing 2 

Writing i 

Total 23 



Fifth Form 



French and Latin 
Modern languages . 
History and geography 
Arithmetic 



Hrs. 

10 

S 
3 
2 



Natural science i 

Drawing 2 



Total 23 



Hrs. 

French 6 

Modern languages .... 5 

History and geography ... 3 
Mathematics and mechanical 

drawing 4 

Natural science i 

Drawing 2 

Writing i 

Total 22 



Principles of Secondary Education 



Division A 



Division B 



Fourth Form 

With Without 
Greek, Greek, 
Hrs. Hrs. 



Literary instruction : 

Ethics, French, Latin lo 

Greek 3 

Modern languages . . 3 

History and geography 3 

Mathematics .... 2 

Natural science ... i 

Drawing i 

Totals . .... 23 



Literary instruction : 
[o Ethics, French ... 

4 Modern languages ... 
3 History and geography . 
2 Mathematics, bookkeeping 
and geometrical drawing 

1 Natural science . . . 
Physics and chemistry 

2 Drawing ,. 

22 Total 



Hrs. 



4 
3 

4i 

I 

21 



1 One hour for mechanical drawing. 



Third Form 

With Without 
Greek, Greek, 
Hrs. Hrs. Hrs. 

Literary instruction : Literary instruction : 

Ethics, French, Latin 11 11 Ethics, French .... 7 

Greek 3 ~ 

Modern languages . . 3 4 Modern languages .... 5 

History and geography 3 3 History and geography . . 3 
Mathematical science . 3 3 Mathematics and geometri- 

Drawing i 2 cal drawing 4 

Physics and chemistry . . 2\ 

Natural science .... i 

Bookkeeping ^ - 

Drawing 2 

Totals .... 24 23 Total 24I 

1 One hour optional for practical bookkeeping in schools where its local use- 
fulness is recognized by formal vote of the regular teaching staff in general 
assembly. 



Secondary Education in Europe 



Second Cycle 

(Length, three years; from the second to the philosophy-mathe- 
matics form inclusive) 

Second Form 





Section A 


Section B 


Section C 


Section D 




Latin- 
Greek 


Latin- 
Modern 
Languages 


Latin- 
Science 


Science- 
Modern 
Languages 


Literary instruc- ! t . • 

^^°^ 1 Greek : ." 

History [ Modern history . 

and { Ancient history . 

geography [ Geography . . 

Modern languages .... 

Mathematics 

Physics and chemistry . . . 
Science laboratory .... 

Drawing 


Hrs. 

4 

ill 4* 
I J 

2 
2 

2 


Hrs. 

4 Is 
4 J 

1 J 

2 1 

4^J 

2 
2 


Hrs. 

2 

2h' 

2 


Hrs. 
4 

^ 1 
- [3 
I , 
2 

i^f7 
4^J 

aV- 

2\' 

2 


Totals 


22>h 


23i 


26 


27 



1 One hour in Sections B and D for the language studied in the first cycle. 

^ Four hours for the second language. 

^ Two hours for mechanical drawing. 

* Mathematics instruction occupies five hours up to February isth, and four 
hours after that date. 

^ Chemistry instruction occupies one hour up to February 15th, and two hours 
after that date. 



84 



Principles of Secondary Education 



First Form 







Section A 


Section B 


Section C 


Section D 




Latin- 
Greek 


Latin- 
Modern 
Languages 


Latin- 
Science 


Science- 
Modern 
Languages 




Hrs. 


Hrs. 


Hrs. 


Hrs. 




r French 


4^ 




- 2* 


Ih 


4 


Literary instruc- 
tion 


Latin . . 
Latin, extra 
hours 


3 

2 


■ 14 






. Greek . . 


,sJ 




- 


- 


- 


History f Modern history 
and { Ancient history 


:i 




' 1 


M 


2 

- [3 


^ 


- 3 


geography I Geography . . . 


iJ 




I J 


xi 


I J 






M. 




2 1 


Modern languages 


2 


2 


1M7 






4^J 




4^J 


Mathematics 


2+2* 


2+2* 


5 
3 


5 
3 


Physics and chemistry . . . 






Science laboratory 


- 


- 


2 


2 


Drawing 


- 2* 


- 2* 


2 ^ 
2/4 


:N' 


Totals . . 




23 +4* 


21 +6* 


26 


28 



* Optional. 

^ One hour in Sections B and D for the language studied in the first cycle. 
^ Four hours for the second language. 
' Two hours for mechanical drawing. 



Secondary Education m Europe 
Philosophy and Mathematics Forms 



85 





Philosophy 


Mathematics 




Section A 


Section B 


Section A 


Section B 


Philosophy 

Greek-Latin 

Latin 

Modern languages . . . 

History and geography 

Mathematics 

Cosmography 

Physics and chemistry . . 
Natural science .... 
Science laboratory . . . 

Drawing 

Hygiene (12 lectures of one 
hour each *) .... 


Hrs. 

84 

4* 

2* 

3* 

2* 

1 
2 

5 
2 

2* 


Hrs. 

84 

2* 
f I 

34 

2* 

1 

2 

5 
2 

2* 


Hrs. 
3 

2 

34 
8 

2 
2 
1 2+ 2*3 


Hrs. 
3 

I 

J2I 

34 

82 

5 
2 
2 

I 2 + 2* 3 


Totals 


194 + 10* 


224 + 6* 


264 + 2* 


274 + 2* 



* Optional. 

1 The pupils have the right to select for themselves the distribution of these 
two hours. 

2 Mechanical drawing. 

3 Ornamental design is optional. 

* These lectures are included in the natural science instruction. 

^ Baccalaureate Degree. — The natural culmination of the 
course at a French lycee or college is the baccalaureate. This 
is purely a degree of secondary education, consequently differ- 
ing materially from our corresponding degree. It is not easy 
to evaluate the American and the French degrees on account 
of the lack of standardization notorious in this country. The 
French degree, however, stands for a very definite intellec- 
tual attainment, the degree from Lille, Poitiers, or Marseille 
being accounted as high as that from Paris. It represents a 



86 Principles of Secondary Education 

measure of attainment which would probably be reached 
about midway of the course at the better American colleges. 
In France, the bachelor's degree is the sole passport to the 
university and so to all grades of higher education. Each 
academy has its own baccalaureate examination commission 
whose members are drawn from university and secondary 
ranks in substantially equal numbers. Thus the examina- 
tion fulfils the double purpose of checking up the work of the 
schools and at the same time of determining the candidate's 
fitness to undertake university study. It cannot be denied 
that it is rather a serious ordeal, for the mortahty is very 
great, something over 40 per cent of the candidates suc- 
ceeding at the first part of the examination, and about 60 
per cent at the second. At the same time, it must be recog- 
nized that the leaving- school problem is not so acute in the 
French secondary schools as it is in America. With us there 
is a considerable dropping out all along the line, while in 
France the very great majority complete the course, and the 
mortahty is largely concentrated at the end at the time of the 
baccalaureate examination. 

Reference has already been made to the two parts of the 
examination, which are separated by an academic year. 
There are two sessions in each part per year, one in July and 
the other in October. The candidate who fails in July may 
come up again the next fall. Taking these facts into con- 
sideration and remembering that the candidates at the second 
part one year are restricted to those who were successful at 
the previous session, it will appear that between 55 and 60 
per cent of those who really come up for the examination 
finally secure the coveted honor. The total number of bache- 
lors in 1910 was 7063 and in 1912 was 7264. Since 1902 
there has been only one baccalaureate, the former degrees 
in letters and science being no longer granted. The certifi- 
cate given for successful passage of the first part bears the 
mention Latin-Greek, Latin-modern-language, Latin-science, 



Secondary Education in Europe 87 

or science-modern-language, but no one possesses any official 
advantage over any other. Success in the second or final 
part carries with it the baccalaureate degree, with the men- 
tion philosophy, or mathematics, the chief point to note being 
that there is only one degree. The value is the same for all, 
whether the holder intends to enter the arts faculty, the 
science faculty, the law school, the medical school, or an 
engineering school. 

School Population. — In the year 1913 there were in 
lycees for boys and 236 communal colleges in France and Al- 
geria, containing about 58,000 and 37,000 pupils, respectively. 
Few of the former are outside the capitals of the departments, 
while practically all the latter are in cities of less importance. 
In fact, with the exception of Paris, no city has both a lycee and 
a college. The number of the lycees as well as their population 
is increasing slowly from year to year, rather more rapidly, 
indeed, than the population of the country. In spite of the 
dispersion of the congregations and the suppression of the 
schools under control of the religious bodies, the successors 
of these schools under private control still contain nearly as 
many pupils as are to be found in the lycees. The graduates 
of these private schools, however, must pass the baccalaureate 
examination given by the state in order to enter the university 
or any of the higher state institutions of learning. 

Boarding Schools. — One striking characteristic that differ- 
entiates the state secondary schools in France from those in 
any other country is the fact that they are boarding schools. 
This is another heritage from the Jesuit colleges, although, 
as a matter of fact, the general scheme far antedates the 
Jesuits themselves, for the original university colleges in 
France were all boarding schools. Of late years, this resi- 
dential feature has evidently been falling into disfavor, for 
not only are the boarding pupils not keeping pace with the 
growth of the schools, but their numbers are actually decreas- 
ing. In 1885 there were 25,000 pupils living in the lycees, 



88 Principles of Secondary Education 

while by 1908, this number had fallen to 17,000, and to-day 
they are probably fewer still. Boarding departments in the 
colleges show the same tendency, although the losses here 
have not been so striking. While boarding-school life has its 
advantages, one can readily understand why French parents 
should be less and less willing to subject their sons to the 
almost cloistral seclusion in the cold stone " barracks " of a 
city school. The more rural character of the college loca- 
tions together with the opportunity of living a freer life is 
partly responsible for the fact that the depopulation of the 
residential departments of the colleges has not proceeded 
so rapidly as in the case of the lycees. In addition to the 
boarding pupils, one finds in each school half-boarders, super- 
vised study pupils, and day pupils. The half-boarders are 
subjected to the same regime as the residential pupils, save 
that they have the evening meal and sleep at home. They 
may come to school as early as six or half -past six in the morn- 
ing. The supervised day pupils do all their studying in the 
study halls of the school under the same supervision as the 
first two classes of pupils. The day pupils are at the school 
only for the regular class work. 

Teaching Force. — The residential feature of French second- 
ary schools necessitates an elaborate administrative organiza- 
tion to meet this special condition. Each lycee is in charge of 
a proviseur or headmaster, who is managing director as well 
as educational head of the institution. He is assisted by a 
censor whose official title is " censor of studies," but whose 
chief function is that of discipline master. The censor looks 
after attendance, transmits all reports from the class teachers 
to the headmaster, and is in general charge of the boys while 
they are within the school precincts. A third general adminis- 
trative officer is the econome, or bursar, who is the business 
manager and financial agent of the school. 

The brunt of the teaching burden is borne by the regular 
teaching force, professeurs, as well equipped a body of men on 



Secondary Education in Europe 89 

the whole as is to be found in any secondary system in the 
world. This staff in the lycees is really of superior type, for 
only agreges are appointed to these positions. The agregation 
is a title, a kind of diploma, which not only stands for a high 
degree of scholarship, but also indicates that the holder is one 
of the ten or a dozen best men in his subject in France that 
year, as proved by the fact that he has come out toward the 
head of a Hst in a national competitive examination. There 
are eight orders of agregation : philosophy, letters, grammar, 
history and geography, modern language, mathematics, 
physical science (physics and chemistry), and natural science, 
corresponding to the various departments of learning repre- 
sented in the secondary school program of studies. Most 
of these terms are sufficiently self-explanatory to need no 
further comment. The work of the agreges in letters and 
grammar is essentially the same, each one having to teach 
French, Latin, and, when necessary, Greek. In the main, 
the letters men receive appointments in the classes of the 
first cycle, and the grammar men in those of the second cycle, 
These eight orders of agreges deUmit exactly the fields of 
the departmental teaching. Such a high degree of specializa- 
tion is provided for and observed in the French lycee that it 
would be as unthinkable for the agrege in history and geography 
to teach a class in elementary mathematics, as for the professor 
in chemistry in an American state university to take a first- 
grade class in the university practice school. It is largely by 
differentiating the various fields of instruction and in keeping 
them distinct that the French schools have been able to develop 
such an effective teaching staff. They are careful, however, 
not to run to too narrow specialization, for it is relatively rare 
that even an agrege teaches but a single subject. This is 
only true in the case of philosophy and modern languages. A 
man is agrege in English, or German, or Italian, or Spanish, 
andxthe like, and he must confine himself to his specialty. 
It is immaterial how many teachers there may be in the school, 



QO Principles of Secondary Education 

one is never allowed to teach only Latin, or French, or history, 
or geography. The letters or grammar man must have 
French and Latin ; the history man must teach history and 
geography ; the physical science man, physics and chemistry ; 
the natural science man, botany, zoology, and geology; and 
the mathematics man must handle mathematics as a whole, 
and not break it up arbitrarily into the smaller fields so familiar 
in the United States, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonom- 
etry, and the like. In this way the French seem to have 
limited the field of the teacher's work to a small enough area 
to insure a mastery of the subject, and yet have avoided the 
other extreme' of narrow speciaHzation. All agreges may 
fairly be assumed to have covered an elementary and second- 
ary course of twelve years ; to have spent from one to three 
or more years in advanced study beyond the secondary school 
course by way of preparation for the competitive examina- 
tion for entrance to the higher normal school ; and then to 
have studied for three years (four in the case of the science 
men) in a professional school before coming up for the agrega- 
tion. The quaUty of the men who have survived this ordeal, 
with its various hazards, failure to negotiate any one of which 
means disaster, cannot be gainsaid. 

The regular teachers in the colleges do not measure up to 
this high standard, for they are required to hold nothing more 
than the master's degree, for which of course the element of 
competition is lacking. In both lycees and colleges some of 
the classes are intrusted to acting teachers, whose qualifica- 
tions are somewhat inferior to those of the regular teachers 
in the corresponding positions. There are roughly rather 
more than five regular appointees to two acting teachers in 
the secondary schools as a whole. In addition to these two 
classes of teachers, there are instructors of the elementary 
classes as well as special teachers of drawing and gymnastics. 

The aforementioned groups constitute the teaching force 
proper of the schools. SpeciaUzation in the French schools 



Secondary Education iji Eitrope 91 

again comes to the fore to the extent that the teachers do 
nothing but teach. They come to school to meet their classes, 
and the moment the lessons are over, their responsibihty 
ceases. Supervision of study rooms and other work of a more 
or less police-like character are not among their duties. 
Special groups of people are employed for this exclusive pur- 
pose. Tutors {repetiteurs) are on duty all day long to look 
after the boys during recreations and meal times, and to 
supervise them during the study hours in rooms set apart for 
that purpose ; while from dinner time at night until after 
breakfast the next morning, surveillants are constantly with 
the boys. Every moment that the boy is in school, he is 
under the personal charge of some regularly appointed officer. 
Not only do the residential pupils lead lives of perfect regu- 
larity, where the opportunity for wasting time is reduced to 
a minimum, but thanks to the supervision of their study 
periods they are able to attack their work intelHgently and in 
the most telling fashion. 

Salaries. — The question of teachers' salaries is so com- 
pKcated as to make any generalization convey but an im- 
perfect idea of the actual situation. Every order of teachers 
in the entire system, whether it be headmasters in Paris, or 
headmasters in the provinces, regular professors in either of 
these two areas, acting professors, professors of drawing, 
tutors, and the Hke, is divided into six classes. An appoint- 
ment to any one of these orders means beginning in the lowest 
class with the assurance of rising regularly in accordance with 
a very definite scale of advancement. A new salary schedule 
went into effect in 1911-1912 which raised salaries all along 
the hne about five hundred francs in each instance, but pro- 
vided for the present incumbents reaching the new standard 
in five or six years. Under this revised scale, the salaries 
of regular professors in Paris range from 5500 to 9000 francs, 
with an additional 500 francs to each agrege. The correspond- 
ing figures in the provincial lycees run from 3700 to 6700 



92 Principles of Secondary Education 

francs. Headmasters are reckoned in the same category 
with the regular professors, but they receive from 2000 to 
4000 francs additional for their services as directors. Taking 
everything into consideration, the highest salary it is possible 
for a Paris headmaster to receive is 13,000 francs ($2700). 
As a matter of fact, the highest salary actually paid in Paris 
in 1 910 was 11,000 francs. Even keeping in mind that the 
headmaster has no house rent to pay and receives certain 
allowances for light and heat, this income still falls far short of 
what men in corresponding positions in this country receive. 
When the different standards of Hving in the two countries 
are evaluated, however, the American headmaster's advantage 
begins to disappear, and when cognizance is taken of the social 
and academic standing of the two men, the relative position 
of the two as expressed in our first comparison becomes quite 
reversed. Security of tenure together with the assurance 
of a retiring pension makes the advantage in the case of the 
French headmaster even more pronounced. The situation 
of the regular professor is not quite so fortunate, for his salary 
is less than that of his headmaster, and he must provide his 
own living accommodations, but all things considered his lot 
is a happy one. Secure in his position beyond the reach of 
any political or other malignant influence, with certain though 
perhaps slow promotion before him, possessed of sufficient 
leisure to provide for his own spiritual and professional growth, 
confident in the assurance of a retiring pension awaiting him, 
and able to live comfortably within his means, the lot of a 
French secondary teacher is almost to be envied. His school 
duties are certainly not onerous. There is a regularly arranged 
schedule showing the amount of teaching required of each 
class of teacher. In Paris this varies from ten to sixteen hours 
per week in the secondary classes proper, while in the provinces 
it runs slightly higher. Two hours additional may be de- 
manded of anybody, but for that extra remuneration is granted. 
Further supplementary hours are entirely at the discretion of 



Secondary Education in Europe 93 

the teacher, but opportunities are not lacking to add to one's 
income in this way. 

School Fees. — Attention has already been called to the 
fact that the secondary schools of France are all fee schools. 
Instruction in every kind of a primary school is free, but in 
all grades of secondary schools tuition is charged. This 
varies so widely that averages would tell only partial truths. 
The schools all over the country are carefully classified and 
the charges graded for each of the four categories of pupils 
in every form from the lowest to the highest. In Paris the 
fees for the beginning pupils of the infant class range from 
90 francs per annum for the day pupils to 900 francs for the 
boarding pupils, while in the highest forms the corresponding 
figures run from 650 to 1650 francs. In the provincial lycees 
the fees range from 40 francs to 700 francs for the infant 
class, and from 320 to 1250 francs for the top form. The 
highest figure quoted here, 1650 francs (I330), seems little 
enough for the total yearly expense, including board, room, 
tuition, and other fees, in the best secondary schools in 
France. 

Budget. — In view of the amount of the school fees, it is 
not surprising that the expenses of the government are con- 
siderably more than the receipts. It is interesting to note, 
however, that the boarding department succeeds far better 
than the day pupils' department, the former contributing 
nearly 95 per cent of the boarding expense account, whereas 
the day pupils pay only a Httle more than half of what they 
cost the state. In 1903, the amount carried on the budget 
to make up the deficit in the day-pupil department was seven 
and a quarter milHons of francs, as opposed to only one million 
in the case of the residential pupils. In 1 910, the former figure 
had risen to 8,400,000 francs, while the latter had dropped to 
584,000 francs. According to the budget of 1903, the total 
expense to the state for secondary education over and above 
what it received from fees and the Hke amounted to about 



94 Principles of Secondary Education 

25,800,500 francs — two and a quarter millions of francs 
for girls' schools, eighteen and three quarters millions for 
boys' schools, and the balance for administration, central 
office charges, scholarships, and other alHed expenses. From 
time to time, attempts have been made to aboHsh fees in 
secondary schools, but since under the present system sec- 
ondary education is absorbing nearly 12 per cent of the 
entire budget of the education department in addition to the 
receipts from tuition fees, there is Httle probability of this 
happening in the immediate future. 

EDUCATION OF GIRLS. — Until within a single genera- 
tion, public secondary education for girls has not figured in 
French social life. The passage of the law pro\'iding for es- 
tablishing secondary schools for girls at state expense was one 
of the most significant acts of the period from 1879 to 1882, 
which may fairly be called the French modern educational 
renaissance. In May, 1907, the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
the opening of the first lycee for girls was celebrated in Paris 
with fitting ceremonial. This whole movement for girls' 
education is distinctly modern in its character, and it has 
therefore been free from the incubus of tradition which has 
certainly more than once hampered the development of boys' 
schools. M. Greard expressed this very suggestively when 
he said : " Boys' secondary instruction had its traditions. 
Girls' secondary education lent itself much more easily to 
novelties, being itself a novelty." This situation became 
apparent more than once during the parliamentary debates 
upon the bill providing for the creation of these girls' schools. 
In the first place, they are exclusively day schools, although 
municipal or individual initiative not infrequently conducts 
boarding departments in conjunction therewith. In the 
second place, the whole constitution of the program of studies 
reflects a decidedly " modern " educational point of view. 
This latter characteristic will be more evident in the con- 
sideration of the subjects of instruction. 



Secondary Education in Europe 95 

Girls' secondary schools fall into three general categories : 
state lycees, communal colleges, and secondary courses es- 
tabhshed by local authorities with the moral and in some cases 
financial support of the state. These three categories represent 
steps in the evolution of individual institutions, for practically 
every new lycee created within the last few years has passed 
through these three stages, beginning as a secondary course, 
being transformed into a college, and thence into a lycee. 
The secondary courses hardly merit the name " schools," for 
they lack the organization that such a term implies, nor can 
they be looked upon as permanent foundations. The appella- 
tion " course " is sufficiently descriptive. They are ordinarily 
in charge of directresses, with a teaching force drawn from 
the staffs of the boys' lycees or colleges in the neighborhood. 
No fixed program of study is prescribed for them, although 
the government offers certain official recognition in granting 
a diploma for successful completion of the work. This course 
prepares specifically for the two lowest diplomas required for 
teaching in elementary schools and for admission to the girls' 
higher normal school at Sevres. 

In 1 913 there were 52 lycees for girls, 81 colleges, and 50 
secondary courses in France and Algeria. Six years before 
there were 49 lycees, 61 colleges, and 63 secondary courses. 
The number of lycees has probably about reached a state of 
equilibrium. Secondary courses have been steadily decreas- 
ing in number since 1887, due to the fact that they are or- 
dinarily looked upon as temporary expedients, but the loss 
here has been more than balanced by the gain in the number 
of colleges. Despite the fact that the lycees are the least 
numerous, they are by far the largest, judged on the basis of 
school population. The total number of girls in these three 
types of schools is not far from 35,000 pupils. 

Organization. — Girls' lycees and colleges bear the same 
relation to each other that prevails in the case of the corre- 
sponding boys' schools. They are organized much more 



96 Principles of Secondary Education 

effectively than are the girls' secondary courses, although they 
are quite unlike the boys' schools. The course is arranged 
on a five-year basis, instead of seven as in the case of the boys. 
Preparatory training is provided in elementary classes attached 
to the school, but the pupils do not enter here until they are 
eight years of age. This defers admission to the secondary 
school proper until twelve, and allows the whole course to be 
completed by the time the girl has reached her seventeenth 
year. The regular five-year course is divided into two parts, 
one of three years and the other of two, with a sixth year, found 
in only a few of the more important lycees, which prepares 
specifically for the higher normal school for girls. 

Program of Studies. — The subjects' of instruction for the 
first part of the course include : (i) ethics ; (2) French ; 
(3) modern languages ; (4) history ; (5) geography ; (6) mathe- 
matics; (7) natural history; (8) physics and chemistry; 
(9) domestic economy and hygiene; (10) sewing; (11) draw- 
ing; (12) singing; and (13) gymnastics. To these must be 
added in the second part of the course : (i) psychology ; 
(2) ancient and modern foreign Hteratures ; (3) cosmography ; 
and (4) elements of common law. 

The program in full appears on the following pages. 

Perhaps the most striking characteristic about this second- 
ary school program is the absence of the classical influence. 
Greek has never appeared as a subject of instruction in the 
girls' schools, but Latin has been buffeted about in a rather 
ruthless but interesting fashion. When the schools were first 
established, Latin figured as an optional subject of study, 
introduced largely out of deference to the prevaihng human- 
istic influence in secondary school affairs. In 1897 it was 
aboHshed entirely, its cultural element being represented by 
the study of Latin and Greek Hterary masterpieces read in 
the vernacular. It has recently been restored as an optional 
subject in a few lycees, largely in order to prepare girls for the 
baccalaureate examination. 



Secondary Edtication in Europe 

WEEKLY PROGRAM 

Elementary Classes of the Girls' Secondary Schools 
(Hours per week) 



97 



Subjects 



Infant 

Class 

8-9 Yrs. 



g-io Yrs. 



II 

lo-ii Yrs. 



Ill 

11-12 Yrs. 



French . . . 
Modern languages 

History . , . 

Geography . . 

Arithmetic . . 
Nature study 

Needlework . . 

Drawing . . . 



61 

I 
I 



61 

2\ 

I 
I 

2| 
1 
2 
* 

* 



* No definite amount of time specified. 

Girls' Secondary Schools — First, Second, and Third Years 
(Hours per week) 



SXJBJECTS 



Ethics 

French language and literature 
Modern languages .... 

History 

Geography 

Mathematics 

Natural history 

Physics and chemistry . . . 
Domestic economy and hygiene 

Sewing 

Drawing 

Singing 

Gymnastics 

Totals 



Years 



2 
2 
I 



II 



III 



I 

3* 
3 

2 

I 
2 



12 lectures of one 
hour each 



minimum 
time for 
each subject 
per year 



98 



Principles of Secondary Education 



Fourth and Fipth Years 



Required Subjects 



Ethics '. . . 

Psychology appHed to ethics and education . . . 

French language and literature 

Ancient literatures 

Modern foreign literatures 

Modern languages 

History 

Geography 

Mathematics 

Common law 

Physics 

Physics and chemistry 

Animal and vegetable anatomy and physiology, 
hygiene 

Totals 

Optional Subjects 

Mathematics 

Additional modern language 

Sewing 

Drawing 

Singing 

Gymnastics 

Totals . . 

Grand totals 



Years 



IV 



3 

I 

3 

2 

I 
1* 



14 



2 
2 

I 

3 

2 

I 
1* 



15 



2 
2 
2t 

A 
it 
lit 



24i 



2 
2 

A 
A 
it 
iM 



2Sl 



* I hour for one semester. 



t Minimum. 



School Population. — The population of the girls' second- 
ary schools represents a distinctly different cross section of 
society from that of the boys', and in the main attends school 
with a different purpose in view. For the boy, the secondary 
sthool is a cultural institution, but one that has a distinctly 



Secondary Education in Europe 99 

professional bent. In other words, he goes there chiefly in 
order that he may thereby pass into the law school, the medical 
school, the arts or science faculty, or the government engineer- 
ing schools, in nearly every case with a professional career 
in prospect. With the girls, however, a relatively small 
number has teaching or any other professional calling in mind. 
Much less do the pupils of these girls' schools look forward 
to entering the ranks of the industrial or commercial army. 
Consequently, one is not surprised to find that the majority 
of the girls in these secondary schools drop out at the end of 
the first part of the course, having continued thus far with a 
purely general cultural aim in view. 

Academic Distinctions. — There are two academic rewards 
in girls' secondary schools : the certificate of secondary studies 
at the end of the third year ; and the diploma {diplome de fin 
d' etudes) at the end of the fifth year. These are awarded on 
passing set examinations at these times. The baccalaureate, 
which crowns the work of the boys' secondary course, is a 
state examination with which the teachers of the school have 
nothing to do. The leaving examinations at the girls' schools, 
on the other hand, are practically in the hands of the teachers 
of the schools themselves. One reason for this perhaps is 
that the possession of the certificate or the diploma of the 
girls' schools carries with it no particular privilege, not even 
opening the way to university study. To be sure, women 
are admitted to the university, but they must pass through 
the same portal as the men, namely, the baccalaureate. 
Although the girls' schools as a whole do not prepare for this 
degree, no special consideration is extended on that account. 
Girls are held to exactly the same standards as boys, and they 
must make up their short-comings as best they may on the 
outside, by private tutoring or otherwise. 

Standards of Teachers. — In order to acquire the right to 
regular appointment to the teaching force of the girls' lycees, 
the young woman must complete the work in the secondary 



lOO Principles of Secondary Education 

school system itself, leave with the diploma at the end of the 
course, and then go on and secure the agregation as in the 
case of the boys' schools. This, too, is taken normally at 
the conclusion of the course in the higher normal school, 
although the standard here is materially lower than at the 
corresponding boys' school. The requirements for regular 
appointment in the colleges and for appointment as acting 
teachers in the lycees are the same, namely, the possession of 
the certificate for teaching in secondary schools, which may 
be taken ordinarily at the close of the second year in the 
normal school. This examination is competitive like that 
for the agregation, a fact that goes far toward assuring a high 
academic standard for the teaching staff. 
. Secondary education for girls is subject to tuition fees as 
is the boys', although it does not constitute such a drain upon 
the exchequer of the state. In fact some of the lycees are 
nearly if not quite self-supporting. Nevertheless the state 
is compelled annually to make a considerable appropriation 
for the support of these girls' schools. In 1910 the sum thus 
expended amounted to about three and a half milHon francs. 

General Characteristics. — While the reform plan adopted 
in 1902 and the modifications since effected have not given 
universal satisfaction, the secondary school situation in 
France is probably more nearly in a state of equihbrium 
than in any one of the other four leading nations. Within 
the last generation the progress achieved has been little 
short of remarkable. To-day scarcely anybody is shut out 
from enjoying its privileges on account of lack of school 
facilities. It must be kept in mind, however, that the 
presence of fees in all secondary schools puts them beyond 
the reach of the great mass of the people, but this is dehb- 
erate on the part of the educational authorities. The United 
States is the only nation in the world which offers univer- 
sal free secondary education. The older nations are or- 
ganized on a decidedly aristocratic basis, and France, al- 



Secondary Education in Europe loi 

though nominally a republic, is yet dominated by the old 
monarchical traditions. The fact that there are scholarships 
available for the brilliant children of the lower social classes 
counts for relatively Httle in affecting the truth of this asser- 
tion. France believes in giving everybody sufficient educa- 
tion to make him a useful and contented participant in the 
work of the world, but when it comes to training for leader- 
ship, she proceeds with the utmost caution, assuming that 
the great majority of the directing classes will be found among 
those who are financially comfortable. Any others must 
first prove their worth before she is willing to expend state 
funds for their education. From a pecuniary point of view 
alone, she is unalterably opposed to offering unlimited free 
education, primary, secondary, and higher to all, with the 
idea that qualified leaders will thereby be evolved. This 
same statement might with equal truth be made of Germany, 
and to a less extent of England as well. In France, however, 
once an individual has demonstrated the unusual character of 
his endowments, the state cannot do too much for him. 

GERMANY 

SOCIAL BACKGROUND. — Much of what has been said 
of the social background of the French secondary school 
system might well be repeated. in the case of Germany with 
only here and there slight modifications, although outwardly 
the monarchical spirit is even more pronounced in Germany 
than in France. One point, however, needs to be made clear 
at the outset. As a factor in world poHtics, the empire pre- 
sents a united front, but when one examines the situation 
more closely, it is evident that this unity is not rooted deep 
in the spiritual consciousness of the people. The foreigner 
does not usually differentiate among the inhabitants of Ber- 
lin, of Munich, and of Stuttgart, yet there is less similarity of 
temperament between the North German and the South 



I02 Principles of Secondary Education 

German than between the French and the Belgian, or the 
French and the Swiss of the Geneva district. In view of the 
extreme difficulty of finding anything that might be called a 
national type in Germany, the Prussian conditions are com- 
monly taken as the standard. There is considerable justifi- 
cation for this from the fact that Prussia, with approximately 
three fourths of the area and the population, wields a pre- 
ponderating influence in imperial affairs. Yet each state 
has its individual school system directed and controlled by 
its own educational authorities, exactly as in our own Ameri- 
can states, and each state is entirely independent in its own 
domestic affairs. There is no imperial minister of education, 
nor does the imperial parliament attempt to impose any edu- 
cational uniformity, save in exceptional instances, notably 
in the uniform standards demanded of all who propose to 
practice medicine, and in the general regulations prescribed 
for all who expect to secure the privilege of the one-year 
volunteer service in the army. In the absence of specific 
indications to the contrary, the following account may be 
assumed to describe conditions as they exist in Prussia. 

EDUCATIONAL CONTROL. — As in the case of France, 
education is a matter of pubHc concern that is looked at from 
a state point of view. Educational control in Prussia is 
centered in a minister of education, whose official title is 
Minister of ReHgious and Educational Affairs {Minister der 
geistlichen und Unterrichts-Angelegenheiten). As yet no Ger- 
man state has any cabinet officer who devotes his attention 
exclusively to educational affairs. Prussia seems tending 
in that direction, for in January, 191 1, public health, which 
had formerly been a department of the above-named ministry, 
was raised to an independent position, and there is a growing 
demand for the separation of the departments of ecclesiastical 
affairs and education. There is one fundamental difference 
between the positions of the French and German educational 
heads : in France, the minister is responsible to the parlia- 



Secondary Education in Etirope 103 

ment, while in Prussia, the minister is responsible to the king 
alone. As a consequence, the incumbency of the German 
minister is considerably more stable than in the case of the 
corresponding French official. Below the minister is an 
under-secretary who acts as his deputy. The ministry is 
furthermore divided into three departments : one depart- 
ment for ecclesiastical affairs ; and two for education, the 
first having charge of secondary and higher education, and 
the second of elementary education. There is also a council 
of some thirty members, mostly jurists, who aid the minister 
with their advice, and divide the various administrative 
duties that devolve upon so important a department. They 
have little or no final power, however, for the minister must 
assume responsibility for the entire conduct of his depart- 
ment. Whenever fundamental changes of great moment 
seemed desirable, he has been known to call a general con- 
ference made up of prominent laymen as well as of leading 
educators of the country to aid him further in his delibera- 
tions. This has happened three times within the last genera- 
tion: in 1890, in 1900, and again in 1907. The first two 
resulted in the reforms of the boys' secondary schools of 1892 
and 1 90 1, and the last preceded the recent reorganization of 
girls' secondary education. It must be clearly understood, 
however, that no one of these conferences had any real power, 
not even the right to make recommendations for public con- 
sideration. They were merely deliberative bodies for the 
convenience of the minister, nor was he even morally bound to 
adopt their conclusions. 

The Prussian state is composed of twelve provinces, each 
of which is administered by a president. All secondary and 
elementary educational affairs within each of these areas 
are under the control of the provincial school board {Fro- 
vincial SchulkoUegium), at whose head sits the above-men- 
tioned president. The membership of these boards ranges 
in number from four in the smaller provinces to fourteen in 



I04 Principles of Secondary Education 

Brandenburg, the province in which Berlin is situated. All 
save the president are professional educators, who have toiled 
long and successfully in the educational service of the state, 
and who bring to their work the ripeness of judgment and 
sanity of mind that are so necessary in administrative work 
of this nature. While nominally inspection of schools forms 
a part of their duties, in practice they are chiefly occupied 
with the larger problems of administration in their position 
as intermediaries between the ministry at BerHn and the 
schools. They come into direct relations with the secondary 
schools of their province, being charged with the '' super- 
vision, direction, and inspection of schools which lead to the 
universities ; and the appointment, promotion, discipline, 
suspension, and dismissal of teachers in these institutions " 
(except the directors). Thus these provincial school boards 
have practically the entire professional control of all second- 
ary schools within their domains, save only for the examina- 
tion of teachers. This is intrusted to another set of boards 
known as examining commissions {Wissenschaftliche Prufungs- 
Kommissionen) , eleven in number for the whole state. The 
advantages of the system will be at once apparent, for the 
examination commission of subject matter specialists (uni- 
versity professors are frequently members of these bodies) 
passes upon the candidate's academic qualifications, other 
experts judge of his teaching abilities, while the provincial 
school board renders the final decision as to whether or not 
the apphcant should be placed upon the eligible list. In the 
face of this series of tests, it is next to impossible for the un- 
worthy candidate to secure an appointment. 

The provincial school board has direct charge of the royal 
schools (that is, those supported at state expense), while even 
in the case of similar schools founded and maintained by the 
municipahties the control of these boards is absolute over the 
purely professional side of the administration, and extends 
also in a supervisory capacity over the accounts, the budget, 



Secondary Edtication m Europe 105 

and the general external administration. Although munici- 
palities may establish schools of their own, they must in 
all cases conform to regulations laid down by these provincial 
school boards. So, too, with the selection of teachers. This 
is a prerogative of the communities, but inasmuch as their 
choice is Kmited to an eligible hst drawn up by the provincial 
school board, they have Httle real power in the matter. The 
hand of the state is thus everywhere in evidence, but it is 
chiefly felt in the determination of standards — standards 
of health and hygiene, standards of salaries, standards of 
academic and professional fitness on the part of the teachers. 
It should be observed that these are all minimum standards 
and never maximum standards. If the community, for ex- 
ample, desires to pay more than the regular salary schedules 
(and in the cities of importance salaries in municipal schools 
are frequently higher than in the corresponding state schools) , 
every encouragement is extended to such ambition. The 
municipal board may determine what kind of a school it shall 
have, nay is even left perfectly free to decide whether or not 
it shall have any secondary school at all ; it may found the 
school, provide the equipment, choose the teachers under 
restrictions previously indicated, and do everything to put 
the school in running order. Once this is done, however, 
municipal prerogative ceases to be operative. The only 
thing left for the local board is to pay the bills, and it may 
not renounce this privilege at will, for it has absolutely no 
control over the purely professional aspects of the adminis- 
tration of its own school. This is all directed by the pro- 
vincial boards. In this professional control by educational 
experts of the higher schools in Germany, one finds the clue 
to the marvelous efficiency of her secondary school system. 

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS. —The dis- 
tinctions that we have already drawn between the secondary 
and elementary schools in France will, to a very large extent, 
hold true for Germany. In the last analysis, the fundamental 



io6 Principles of Secondary Education 

difference is a social difference. The stratification of the 
continental life has been carried to such an extent that the 
coming generation is reasonably sure to follow along in sub- 
stantially the same social level as did the preceding genera- 
tion. Any such rapid readjustments of social conditions as are 
constantly recurring here in the United States are relatively 
rare in the continental countries. Not that such changes 
are impossible, but the presumption is always against them. 
Furthermore, the conditions of industrial and commercial 
life are so highly organized that the youth is reluctant to run 
the risk of failure to " make good." The monarchical char- 
acter of the German government, together with the relative 
venerableness of the German civilization and its consequent 
disinclination to change, tends to strengthen the stratification 
of the social conditions, and to increase the likehhood that 
the youth will not depart from the social groove of his father. 
If the father went to a higher school, the probability is good 
that the child will attend the same sort of a school. While 
the German parent is undoubtedly ambitious for his offspring, 
this ambition is not so unbridled as it is in this country. The 
boldness of the American parent in this respect would be 
characterized as rashness in Germany. In the United States, 
Huxley's familiar expression with reference to the educational 
ladder which should exist in every democracy with one end 
in the gutter and the other in the university is undoubtedly 
borne out by the facts in the case. It is possible for the 
humblest American youth to start at the very bottom and 
come out at the opposite end with no other assistance than 
his own unaided efforts. Such a course is impossible in Ger- 
many. No German state has a school system that permits 
any similar passage. On the other hand, as in France, each 
of the German states has two systems : the lower, or elemen- 
tary, which is practically complete in itself ; and the higher 
(or secondary, as we call it) , which leads on to the university. 
Between these two there is only one regularly recognized 



Secondary Education hi Europe 107 

point of transition : at the close of the third or fourth school 
year. Once beyond here, it is next to impossible to transfer 
from the lower to the higher. Indeed one author has said 
that not one boy in ten thousand who completes the elemen- 
tary school course ever reaches the Gymnasium or in fact 
any one of the " higher " schools. 

This brings up the question : " What is a higher school? " 
A higher school is one whose leaving certificate carries with 
it the right to the one-year volunteer service privilege in the 
army. In the last analysis this is a prize reserved for the 
financially fit, for the tuition fees in the only schools that 
can grant this right effectually exclude the children of the 
proletariat from its enjoyment. It will be readily apparent 
that the ten per cent of free places in the secondary schools 
can have but little effect in alleviating this situation. Ger- 
many is so dominated by mihtarism that every able-bodied 
male looks upon his mihtary service as a matter of course, 
and proceeds to make the best of it. The ordinary young 
man who comes up through the elementary school is con- 
scripted for two or more years of service in the army. Grad- 
uates of higher schools may offer their services for a single 
year. During this time, in return for the honor, social posi- 
tion, and opportunities for further advancement, the volunteer 
reHeves the government of all expense attendant upon his 
army service — food, lodging, arms, and equipment. To the 
American, this privilege would certainly seem of doubtful 
value, especially in view of the fact that it entails an expense 
of from three hundred and fift}^ to several thousand dollars 
per year, but to the German this sacrifice is well worth making. 
In the school that makes all this possible, the instruction goes 
beyond the simple elements given in the lower schools ; it 
gives a complete liberal education ; it leads on to the univer- 
sity, and to other higher institutions. Such a school must in- 
clude in its curriculum : geography, history, German literature, 
mathematics, natural science, and at least two foreign languages. 



io8 Principles of Secondary Education 

BOYS' HIGHER SCHOOLS. — The category of boys' 
higher schools embraces the following : 

Gymnasien and Progymnasien; 
Realgymnasien and Realpr o gymnasien ; 
Oberrealschulen and Realschulen. 

The first of each of these pairs of schools is a nine-year 
school, while the second is a six-year school, identical in all 
respects with the first two^ thirds of the course of its corre- 
sponding relative. On the completion of the courses of the 
Progymnasien and the Real pro gymnasien, which are found 
only in smaller communities, the pupils ordinarily seek the 
respective full-course schools in the nearest large town. Thus 
the advantages of secondary education are extended to a 
much larger number of people without the expense of sup- 
porting so many nine-year schools. In each of these instances, 
the short-course school evolved from the full-course school. 
The contrary is true in the case of the Oherrealschule and the 
Realschule. Here the Realschule was the original tj^e, which 
in its turn was expanded into the Oherrealschule. 

Nine years is the minimum age for entering any of these 
higher schools, and the pupils must have already had at 
least a three years' course in the elementary subjects of read- 
ing, writing, arithmetic, and reUgion. Where the knowledge 
shall have been gained, however, is quite immaterial. It is 
offered in the first three or four years of the elementary school 
{V olksschule) , as well as in the elementary classes (Vorschule) 
frequently found in connection with the secondary school. 

Gymnasium. — The Gymnasium is a classical school pure 
and simple, with the study of the ancient languages forming 
a dominant feature of the course. French is the required 
modern language, although English appears as an elective, 
as does also Hebrew. Its specific purpose is to give such a 
broad humanistic culture as will prepare its pupils for sub- 
sequent university specialization along either arts or science 



Secondary Education in Europe 



109 



lines. The fact that nearly half of the 304 week hours in the 
whole course is devoted to Hnguistic subjects demonstrates 
conclusively the ultra-humanistic character of its work. 
The detailed program follows : 

GERMAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 
GYMNASIUM 





VI 


V 


IV 


UIII 


OIII 


UII 


on 


UI 


01 


TOTAl 


Required : 






















Religion 


3 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


19 


German 


4 


3 


3 


2 


2 


3 


3 


3 


3 


26 


Latin . . 


8 


8 


8 


8 


8 


7 


7 1 
6 f 


U 


^1 


68 


Greek . . 


— 


— 


— 


6 


6 


6 


36 


French . . 


— 


— 


4 


2 


2 


3 


3 


3 


3 


20 


History 


— 


— 


2 


2 


2 


2 


3 1 


3 1 


3 1 


17 


Geography 


2 


2 


2 


I 


I 


I 


9 


Arithmetic and 






















mathematics 


4 


4 


4 


3 


3 


4 


tl 


4 1 
2 J 


4 1 
2 ] 


34 


Natural science 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


18 


Writing 


2 


2 


— 


— 


— 


— 




— 


— 


4 


Drawing 


— 


2 


2 


2 


2 


— 


— 


— 


— 


8 


Gymnastics 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


27 


Singing i . 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


18 




30 


30 


34 


35 


35 


35 


35 


35 


35 


304 


Optional : 






















Drawing 












2 


2 


2 


2 




Hebrew . 














2 


2 


2 




English . . 














2 


2 


2 





1 From IV onward only for pupils with vocal ability. 

Brackets indicate that the time for subjects enclosed may be redistributed 
if desired. 

Realgymnasium. — The Realgymnasium likewise aims to 
give a general culture in which the classical spirit is repre- 
sented by Latin, but in which the modern languages, mathe- 
matics, and the natural sciences figure largely. It represents 
a compromise between the ideals of the classicists and the 
ardent realists. This type of school was denominated a 



no Principles of Secondary Education 

hybrid by the Conference of 1890, and bade fair to go out of 
existence. The tide turned during the latter part of the fol- 
lowing decade, and after the Conference of 1900 the Real- 
gymnasium began to develop rapidly. In this course, Greek 
is replaced by English, while French and the sciences receive 
more attention than in the Gymnasium. 
The detailed program follows : 



GERMAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 
REALGYMNASIUM 





VI 


V 


IV 


UIII 


OIII 


UII 


on 


UI 


01 


TOTAI 


Required : 






















Religion . . 


3 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


19 


German . . 


4 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


28 


Latin . . . 


8 


8 


7 


5 


5 


4 


4 


4 


4 


49 


French . . . 


— 


— 


5 


4 


4 


4 


4! 


4 


4 


29 


English . . . 


— 


— 




3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


18 


History . . . 


— 


— 


2 


2 


2 


2 


^! 


3 


3 


17 


Geography 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


I 


— i 


— 


— 


II 


Arithmetic and 






















mathematics 


4 


4 


4 


S 


5 


5 


5 


5 


5 


42 


Natural science 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


4 


5 


5 


5 


29 


Writing . . 


2 


2 


— 


— 


— 


— 


— 


— 


— 


4 


Drawing . . 


— 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


16 


Gymnastics 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


27 


Singing ^ . . 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


18 




30 


30 


34 


35 


35 


35 


36 


36 


36 


307 


Optional : 






















Geometrical 






















drawing . . 












2 


2 


2 


2 





1 From IV onward only for pupils with vocal ability. 

Brackets indicate that the time for subjects enclosed may be redistributed 
if desired. 

Oberrealschule. — The Realschule is a six-year higher 
school which is outside the pale of any direct classical in- 
fluence whatsoever, for no ancient language appears in its 
program of study. In many of these schools the course has 



Secojidary Education in Europe 



1 1 1 



been extended for three years more, and we have the Oher- 
realschule, a school worthy to rank with the Gymnasium and 
the Realgymnasium. This is more particularly a fitting 
school for the present-day business life, in so far as the chil- 
dren of the upper classes are looking forward to that field of 
activity. Modern languages and the natural sciences, there- 
fore, are the dominant elements in its program of study. 
The detailed program follows : 

GERMAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 
OBERREALSCHULE 





VI 


V 


IV 


UIII 


OIII 


UII 


Oil 


UI 


01 


Total 


Required : 






















Religion . . 


3 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


19 


German . . 


5 


4 


4 


3 


3 


3 


4 


4 


4 


34 


French . . . 


6 


6 


6 


6 


6 


5 


4 


4 


4 


47 


English . . . 


— 


— 


— 


5 


4 


4 


4 


4 


4 


25 


History . . . 


— 


— 


3 


2 


2 


2 


3 


3 


3 


18 


Geography 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


I 


I 


I 


I 


14 


Arithmetic and 






















mathematics 


s 


5 


6 


6 


5 


5 


5 


5 


5 


47 


Natural science 


2 


2 


2 


2 


4 


6 


6 


6 


6 


36 


Writing . . . 


2 


2 


2 


— 


— 


— 


— 


— 


— 


6 


Freehand 






















drawing . . 


— 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


16 


Gymnastics 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


3 


27 


Smgmg 1 . . 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


2 


18 




30 


30 


34 


35 


35 


35 


36 


36 


36 


307 


Optional : 






















Geometrical 






















drawing 












2 


2 


2 


2 





1 From IV onward only for pupils with vocal ability. 

Number of Schools. —On February i, 191 2, there were in 
Prussia 342 Gymnasien, 168 Realgymnasien, 102 Oberreal- 
schulen, and 251 six-year schools, more than two thirds of 
which were Realschulen. Of the 236,173 pupils in these 
schools, nearly half, or, to be more accurate, 103,314, were in 



112 Principles of Secondary Education 

the Gymnasien, 50,319 were in the Realgymnasien, 41,986 
were in the Oberrealschulen, and the others were in the short- 
course schools. In 1 91 1, with nearly the same total number 
of pupils, the graduates numbered 12,820, of whom 8692 had 
completed the course at the nine-year schools, and were con- 
sequently elegible to enter the university. 

Fees. — Reference has already been made to the fact that 
there are no free secondary schools in Germany, although 
the fees are not high, especially considering the character of 
the instruction received. The maximum charges in Prussia 
are less than one half the corresponding tuition figures in 
France, amounting to 150 M. ($37.50) in the three higher classes 
of the nine-year schools, to 130 M. ($32.50) in the six lowest 
classes, as well as in all the classes of the Progymnasien and 
the Realpro gymnasien. In the Realschulen, the charges are even 
lower still, no M. ($22.50), unless the school is in connection 
with a nine-year school, in which case the 130 M. schedule is 
in force. 

EARLY SPECIALIZATION DEFERRED. — Such an or- 
ganization of secondary education as that in Germany, with 
the added consideration that passage from the elementary to 
any one of the higher schools was impossible beyond a certain 
point, long practically forced the youngster to decide at nine 
years of age personally or vicariously what his Hfe work was 
to be. As late as 1900, only Gymnasium graduates were 
admitted to the university to prepare for law, medicine, or 
most of the teaching positions. Naturally the Gymnasium 
pupils on the whole selected that course because no other 
opened the way to a professional or government career. 
Finally the modern spirit that had been struggling for recog- 
nition in the field of secondary education for years beat down 
the guard of the conservative classicists, and the reform of 
1 90 1 in Prussia admitted the graduates of the three types of 
schools, Gymnasien, Realgymnasien, and Oberrealschulen, to 
practically equal privileges as far as university opportunity 



Secondary Education in Europe 113 

and civil service preferment were concerned. Theology, how- 
ever, still remains a monopoly of the purely classical school, 
and the study of medicine is reserved for those who have had 
at least the Realgymnasium course in Latin. 

Reform Plan Schools. — Meanwhile a new type of second- 
ary school had been created, known as the Reform Gymna- 
sium, or Frankfort-plan school. This was an attempt to solve 
the premature specialization problem attendant upon com- 
pelling the early choice of the child's future career. Under 
the Frankfort system a single school has a Gymnasium and a 
Realgymnasium side. For three years there is no differentia- 
tion between them. Then the course bifurcates, one part 
pursuing the Gymnasium studies, and the other part the 
Realgymnasium studies. A comparison of the Frankfort 
program with that of the two pure types will bring significant 
differences to light. For example, Latin is not begun at all 
until the fourth year of the course, foreign language study 
in the meantime being represented by French. According 
to a recent reform of a few years ago, the fourth and fifth 
years under the Frankfort scheme have been made " almost 
common," the only differences in time allotment being con- 
fined to French and Latin. This practically makes it possible 
to change from one course to another with but slight difficulty 
as late as the end of the thirteenth year. At this point the 
Gymnasium pupils begin Greek and the Realgymnasium pupils 
begin English. Once beyond here any further change is im- 
possible. Aside from deferring the final choice of course for 
several years, until the youth shall have gone far enough to 
make a correct decision more reasonably probable, this Frank- 
fort scheme brings up an important pedagogical question as 
to the relative value of beginning the study of the classics 
comparatively late (at twelve instead of at nine) and pur- 
suing them intensively, or beginning earlier and carrying 
them on more discursively. So far as information is available, 
the pupils at the reform Gymnasium do not seem to have 



114 Principles of Secondary Education 

suffered any handicap even when they have later pursued 
their classical studies in the university. 

In any event, the number of these schools is increasing 
rapidly, having grown in Prussia from fifty-seven in 1904 to 
one hundred and twenty-eight in 191 2. If increase in num- 
bers is any criterion, the Frankfort system has come to stay. 
Another type of reform institution which takes its name 
from Altona, the city of its birth, has attempted to do for 
the Realgymnasium and the Realschule what the Frankfort 
plan has for the other two types of higher schools. The 
Altona plan has been but moderately successful, for only six 
schools in Prussia followed it in 191 2, and two of these had 
already decided to go over to the Frankfort scheme. These 
types of reform institution indicate in the first place that 
centralization of educational control does not necessarily 
mean permanency of form and structure, and in the second 
place that Germany is beginning to repudiate a narrow, fixed 
program of studies, and is turning toward the principle of 
election — not a hasty and more or less random choice of 
subjects of stady, but a deliberate, intelligent selection of 
courses. Within a given course, however, there is substan- 
tially no election of subjects. 

Although this reform plan has made marvelous progress 
during the past twenty years, the great majority of the schools 
still cling to the traditional forms. Germany, France, and 
the United States thus present three different types of solu- 
tion for the dissatisfaction with secondary programs of study. 
In Germany, the pupil selects his school, Gymnasium, Real- 
gymnasium, or Oberrealschule type. In France, he finds four 
courses in the same school — Latin- Greek, Latin-modern 
language, Latin-science, and science-modern language — from 
which to choose. In all of these instances, once the course 
is selected, the subjects of study are rather rigidly prescribed. 
In the United States, on the other hand, it is very difficult 
to suggest any general line of procedure, for the absence of 



Secondary Education in Europe 115 

any accepted philosophical background for the organization 
of secondary education is all too painfully apparent. We 
certainly have carried the unlimited and more or less irrational 
election of subjects of study in our high schools to an extreme 
not paralleled in any of the other great nations. We may 
not agree with the principles controlling the organization of 
secondary education in Germany and France, but at least we 
must recognize the fact that there is some accepted educa- 
tional philosophy back of it all, which is more than can be 
said in general for the conditions to be found in our own 
country. 

EDUCATION OF GIRLS. TYPES OF SCHOOLS.— 
Secondary education for girls in Germany suffers materially 
in comparison with that of boys. In fact, it has never been 
taken seriously until within the last few years. Much of 
the recognition accorded it to-day is due to the effective 
propaganda carried on by the " German Association for the 
Secondary Education of Girls " and other similar organiza- 
tions which have been struggling so valiantly for the past 
thirty years. It may be unnecessary to observe in this con- 
nection that coeducation in secondary schools is practically 
unknown in Germany, although on rare occasions one 
finds girls attending boys' higher schools. Woman is not 
looked upon as an economic competitor of man in the work 
of the world, nor is she ever considered as belonging to the 
directing class. Since the program of studies in boys' schools 
is definitely planned for the preliminary training of the country's 
leaders, it will be readily patent that where opportunities for 
education of a more advanced type than that found in the ele- 
mentary schools is offered to girls, it must necessarily differ 
widely from that provided for boys. Its aim is quite differ- 
ent; its organization is Hkewise quite different. In the main, 
it is based upon the course in the Lyzeum, ten years in 
length and extending from six to sixteen. The elementary 
work is an integral part of the whole school, thus resembhng 



1 1 6 Principles of Secondary Education 

the organization of the French secondary schools for boys, 
rather than the German. Superimposed upon the Lyzeum 
is the Oberlyzeum, with a bifurcated course, one branch, the 
Women's School {Die Frauenschule) , with its combination 
housewifery and kindergarten training for two years, and 
the other, the Higher Training School, with a four-year course 
that prepares for teaching in a Lyzeum. 

For those who look forward to university study (a privilege 
but recently extended to women in Germany) there is another 
type of school, Studienanstalt, entered from the Lyzeum at 
the end of the seventh or the eighth year of the course, the 
former if the pupil is to study classics, the latter if she wishes 
to go in for a purely modern grouping of subjects. These 
courses, six and five years respectively, correspond very 
closely to the Gymnasium, Realgymnasium, and Oberreal- 
schule courses of the boys' schools. Completion of the as- 
signed work in any of these three lines and passage of the 
leaving exainination qualify for university entrance. Inas- 
much as there are under three hundred (191 1) public girls' 
higher schools, as the term has been used heretofore, in Prussia, 
and only about one tenth of them fit for the university (thirty 
in 19 11), many girls who might desire a higher education are 
excluded from lack of preliminary training opportunity. One 
is moved to observe that nowhere else in the world is the 
young woman granted the facilities for secondary and higher 
learning that are to be found in America. 

Reorganization of Girls' Schools. — The following diagram, 
including the minor changes in nomenclature to conform with 
the ministerial order of February i, 191 2, will throw consider- 
able light on the organization of girls' schools. Lyzeum here' 
replaces the late Higher Girls' School, while the former Lyzeum 
gives way to the name Oberlyzeum. A leaving examination 
(ReiseprUfung) has been introduced after the third year of 
the training school course, and the fourth or Practical Year 
of this course is henceforth to be known as the Seminar Class. 



Secondary Education in Europe 



117 



ORGANIZATION OF HIGHER GIRLS' SCHOOLS-1912. 



Oberlyzeum 
(Women's School and Teachers' Training School) 



Studienanstalt 

(University Preparation) 



6) Women's (b)Academic and Training Classes 
School Minimum age 

Teacher's examination, 20 yeaTs 

Seminar 



SKL 



(a) 
Oberreal- 
schule 



(b) 
Realgym- 
nasium 



(c) 

Gymna- 
sium 



Class 



Minimum age, final examination, 19 years 



FSI 



OLI 



I 



FSII 



Minimum age, 
1 6 years 



-'< 



OLII 



OLIII 



III 



Lyz eum 



Upper Grades 
(two foreign < 
languages) 



III 



IV 



III 



IV 



IV 



III 



Minimum age, 13 years 



VI 



Latin 
begun 



IV 



English begun 

— Minimum age, 12 years 



Middle Grades 
(one foreign ' 
language) 



Lower Grades 
(preparatory < 
classes) 



VI 



Horizontal bracl<ets (<—»—') 
Indicate common instruction 
in certain subjects 



VII 



French begun 

Minimum age, 9 years 



VIII 



IX 



X Entrance age, 6 years- 



Greek 
begun 



ii8 Prmciples of Secondary Education 

Program of Studies. — Appended will be found the de- 
tailed programs of the Lyzeum and both divisions of the 
Oherlyzeum. Those of the Studienanstalt resemble closely in 
general outline the programs of the corresponding boys' 
schools, save that the influence of the Frankfort reform plan 
is strongly in evidence. Latin on the Gymnasium side suffers 
most, but the loss in time here is compensated for by two 
years of compulsory English, and other hours distributed 
among French, geography, natural science, and drawing. 
The girls' complete course extends over thirteen years in- 
stead of twelve as in the case of the boys. This reduces 
the number of week hours slightly, the possible saving on 
account of optional work in singing and drawing making the 
difference even more noticeable in individual instances. As 
yet academic standards here are scarcely as high as in the 
corresponding boys' schools, but one could hardly expect it 
to be otherwise in view of the relatively recent admission of 
girls to university privileges. 



PROGRAM OF STUDIES IN THE LYZEUM (GIRLS') 
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS 





Lower Grades 


Middle 
Grades 


Upper Grades 


Total 




X IX vin 


VII VI V 


IV III II I 


VII-I 


1 Religion 

2 German 

3 French 

4 English 

5 History and art history 

6 Geography .... 

7 Arithmetic and mathe- 

matics 

8 Natural science . . 


3 3 3 
ID 9 8 

3 3 3 


3 3 3 
6 5 5 
6 S 5 

— 22 
222 

3 3 3 

222 


2222 
4 4 4 4 
4 4 4 4 
4 4 4 4 
2223 
2222 

3 3 3 3 
3332 


17 
32 
32 
16 

13 
14 

21 
17 




i6 15 16 


22 22 22 


24 24 24 24 


162 



Secondary Education in Europe 



119 





TECHNICAL 


SUBJECTS 








9 Writing .... 

10 Drawing .... 

11 Needlework . . . 

12 Singing .... 

13 Gymnastics . . . 


- 3 2 
* * * 

- 2 2 
2/2 2/2 2/2 
2/2 2/2 2/2 


III 

222 
222 
222 
222 


2 

t 
2 

3 


222 

t t t 
222 

3 3 3 


3 

14 

6(14) 
14 
18 




276 


9 9 9 


7(9) 


7 (9) 7 (9) 7(9) 


55 (63) 



* In classes X-VIII occasional drawing and clay modeling during the object 
lessons in German. 

t Needlework is optional in the upper classes. 



PROGRAM OF STUDIES OF THE OBERLYZEUM (GIRLS') 
A. WOMEN'S SCHOOL (Frauenschule) 



1 Pedagogy 

2 Household arts ^ ... 

3 Kindergarten teaching 1 . 

4 Hj'giene and care of chil- 

dren 

5 Civics and economics . . 



6 Household arithmetic 

(bookkeeping) 

7 Needlework 

8 Religion 

9 German 

10 French, EngUsh, Latin, 

or Italian 

11 History, geography, natural 

science 

1 2 History of art 

13 Gymnastics 

14 Drawing and painting 

15 Music 



Total 



10 Including practice in cooking 
and household management. 

8 Including practice work. 

8 Including practical work in 
creches, day nurseries, and 
nursing. 

4 Including visits to philan- 
thropic institutions and 
missions. 



Each subject according to cir- 
cumstances and needs; two 
hours each per week. 



^ Household arts and kindergarten teaching may be so arranged that in the 
first year only the former, and in the second only the latter, may be taken with 
9 hours per week. 



I20 Principles of Secondary Education 



PROGRAM OF STUDIES OF THE OBERLYZEUM (GIRLS') 
B. TEACHERS' TRAINING SCHOOL (Hoheres Lehrerinnenseminar) 



Academic Subjects 



1 Religion 

2 German 

3 French 

4 English 

5 History 

6 Geography 

7 Mathematics .... 

8 Natural science .... 

9 Pedagogy 

10 Method and model lessons 

11 Practice teaching . . . 

12 Reports and discussions . 

Totals 

Technical Subjects 



Academic Classes 



III 



26 



26 



3 
3 
4 
4 
2 
I 
4 
3 
2 

(4) 



26 



Total 



9 

9 

12 

12 

6 

4 
12 



78 



Seminar 
Class 



I^ 

l3 

3 

4 

4-6 



26 

(25-27) 



13 Drawing 

14 Singing 

15 Gymnastics 


2 
I 
3 


2 
3 


I 

I 
3 


5 
3 
9 


3 


Totals 


6 


6 


S 


17 


3 


Grand totals .... 


32 


32 


31 


95 


29 



1 Method and model lessons in Class I are included in the periods given to 
each subject and are given in place of the respective subjects rather than as 
separate courses. 

2 Method and introduction to professional literature. 

3 Method and introduction to experimentation. 

TRAINING OF TEACHERS. — The training of teachers 
for the German secondary schools, together with the fact 
that only adequately prepared persons can secure appoint- 
ment therein, constitutes one of the strong points of the 



Secondary Education in Europe 121 

system. From principle, boys are taught exclusively by men, 
while girls are taught partly by men and partly by women. 
The former have almost invariably been trained at the uni- 
versity, while an ever increasing number of the women teachers 
are receiving the same university experience as the men, and 
the others are prepared in the training classes of the girls' 
schools mentioned before. Regular teachers {Oberlehrer) in 
boys' schools must have completed the course at a higher 
school, must have spent at least six semesters at a German 
university, and must have passed the state examination, 
which in itself occupies a full year of their time. Possession 
of the university degree is not required, nor in fact is it of 
any particular advantage to the man who intends to work 
in secondary schools. Once safely by the state examination, 
the candidate is assigned to a selected higher school for further 
professional work and some practice teaching during his 
seminar year. If successful here, he is advanced to his Prohe- 
jahr, or year of trial teaching. Throughout these two years, 
the candidate is under constant strain, for in addition to an 
ever increasing amount of teaching, sporadic in the first 
year, but regular in the second year, he has his professional 
study to pursue, the teachers' meetings of his school to at- 
tend, papers and reports to prepare, as well as a more important 
dissertation to write toward the end of each year, embodying 
the results of his practical experience. Then only is he eligible 
for his teaching certificate. Even after that he has to await 
his turn for a specific appointment. The training of women 
teachers is not quite so strenuous, and the rapidly expanding 
opportunities for girls' education considerably increases the 
woman's chances of an early appointment. In any case 
the German teacher is prepared for his work through long 
years of training, and he receives his appointment only after 
he has proved his fitness for the position. 

Salaries. — Salaries run about the same as those in France, 
and consequently seem remarkably low by comparison with 



122 Principles of Secondary Education 

those paid in America, especially in view of the qualities de- 
manded, the preparation required, and the responsibilities 
to be discharged. Headmasters of nine-year schools receive 
at the outset 5400 M. (6000 M. in BerHn), rising by regular 
stages to 7200 M. ($1800) per year, together with lodging 
or a compensating allowance ranging from 900 M. to 1800 M, 
Headmasters of six-year schools start at 4800 M. and reach 
the same maximum, but only after twelve years of service 
as against nine and six respectively, in the two earlier cases. 
Regular teachers who have gone through the preparation 
previously described begin at 2700 M. ($675) and reach the 
same maximum, but only after twenty-one years of service, 
profiting in the meantime by residence allowances varying 
from 560 M. to 1200 M. Special and other teachers, includ- 
ing those in the elementary classes, receive from 1800 M. to 
4500 M., depending upon grade and length of service, to- 
gether with similar residence allowances of from 290 M. to 
720 M., according to the size of the community in which they 
live. Teachers in the girls' schools enjoy substantially the 
same salary schedules. Security of tenure, professional and 
social standing, and assurance of a retiring pension are factors 
which must be reckoned with in attempting to evaluate the 
income of the German secondary teacher. 

ENGLAND 

ENGLISH AND CONTINENTAL CONDITIONS CON- 
TRASTED. — The problem of presenting a clear and ac- 
curate picture of secondary education conditions in England 
is immeasurably more difficult than in the case of either 
France or Germany. In the two latter countries, the whole 
scheme is logically organized, and responsibility can readily 
be determined. In England, on the contrary, the state has 
consistently refrained from taking any dominant part in 
educational organization or control until relatively recently. 



Secondary Education in Europe 123 

As a matter of fact, there has really been a state elementary 
school system only since 1870, while the corresponding second- 
ary system is practically the creation of the last dozen years. 
Before the assumption of state control, the forces of instruc- 
tion were organized and administered by church, corporate, 
individual, or municipal authority. One writer offers a 
plausible explanation of the apparently confused state of 
this situation on the ground that : " The secondary school 
system of England is the expression of Saxon individuality 
and self-help." The Anglo-Saxon has carried his inherent 
love of freedom from control over into the educational world, 
and he has resented any and all government interference 
with his " vested " rights. Until relatively recently the 
Enghshman has looked upon state attempts to control or 
to direct education as unwarranted usurpation of personal 
privileges. Fundamental conceptions of the right of the 
social whole to determine the character of the education of 
the individual with the attendant power of control, which 
have been in force in Germany since the Allgemeine Landrecht 
of 1794, and in France since the time of Napoleon, are not 
universally accepted principles in England. In view of 
these facts, one should not be surprised that the facilities 
(" system " is almost a misnomer) for secondary education 
in England in the past render extremely difficult all attempts 
at generalization. Even now there is no " system " of sec- 
ondary education in England ; there are various systems. 

"PUBLIC" SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC LIFE. — For more 
than five hundred years, secondary education, at least that 
most worthy the name, was carried on in what are commonly 
known as the great public schools — schools which have done 
a work of incalculable importance in the development of the 
leaders of English thought and action — but schools which are 
far from being " public " in the ordinary acceptance of the 
word. Except for some of the earlier foundations in France 
and Germany, these are the oldest existing secondary schools 



124 Principles of Secondary Education 

in the world, Winchester dating from 1382, Eton from 1440, 
St. Paul's from 1509, Westminster from 1560, Rugby from 
1567, and Harrow from 1571, names which are to-day almost 
bywords throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. By 1660, this 
institution of great public schools may be said to have be- 
come established. All those mentioned above, as well as 
others of the more famous schools existing to-day, were all 
antecedent to that date, and they have been of immense in- 
fluence in molding the traditions of English public life ever 
since. The oft-quoted remark, attributed to Welhngton, that 
Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, and Sir Max- 
well Lyte's expression, " It is in her public schools and uni- 
versities that the youth of England are, by a discipline which 
shallow judgments have sometimes attempted to undervalue, 
prepared for the duties of public life," represent something 
of the place these venerable institutions occupy in Enghsh 
public opinion. If one were to run over the long list of Eng- 
lish public men for the past two centuries, there would be 
few whose names are not to be found on the rolls, and in 
many cases on the walls themselves, of the great public schools. 
All told there are probably forty or more of these public 
schools, but in practice this term is reserved for the nine 
great public schools, Winchester, Eton, Westminster, Charter- 
house, Rugby, Harrow, Shrewsbury, St. Paul's, and Merchant 
Taylors'. These latter range in size from a few hundred up 
to the rather more than a thousand pupils that one finds at 
Eton, and account in all for upwards of five thousand boys. 
At most, then, this type of education is restricted to a very 
small portion of the total population, but these old schools 
have long served as a standard to which most of the other 
secondary schools strive to conform. 

Nearly all these old schools owe their beginnings to the 
generosity of some individual founder, whose original modest 
endowment has in many cases grown to munificent propor- 
tions. Their management is intrusted to a self-perpetuating 



Secondary Education in Europe 125 

board of governors, who appoint the headmaster and direct 
the financial affairs of the foundation. In other respects, 
the headmaster is entirely responsible for the conduct of 
the school, choosing (and until the passage of the Endowed 
Schools Act, dated August i, 1908, dismissing) his assistant 
masters and other subordinates at will, determining the pro- 
grams of study, and in general having free rein to develop the 
institution in accordance with his own standards. Such free- 
dom offers immense opportunities for the really great man, 
especially when backed by the powerful inertia of centuries of 
tradition, and some of the headmasters have risen nobly to the 
occasion, as for instance in the striking cases of Arnold of Rugby 
and Thring of Uppingham. 

In outward characteristics these schools are all very much 
alike, but when observed from within, each school has its 
own individual peculiarities, and each succeeds in stamping 
its influence on its boys to such a remarkable degree that 
when they come up to the university, the " initiated " can 
differentiate among Wykamists, Etonians, Rugbeians, Har- 
rovians, and the like, as unerringly as the traveled American 
can distinguish among Yankees, Southrons, and middle 
westerners. Almost invariably these schools are boarding 
schools, with the boys scattered in groups of not more than 
forty among the houses of the assistant masters. Each 
house master is directly responsible for the boys living with 
him, physically, intellectually, and morally, so that the choice 
of a house is only little less important than the choice of a 
school. 

Classical Influence. — With remarkable fideHty to tradi- 
tion, these old public schools still conserve their classical 
courses, although one usually finds " modern, science, and 
engineering sides " listed in the school announcements. The 
classical course emphasizes Latin and Greek, with mathe- 
matics and French trailing along behind, while geography 
and modern history bring up a poor third. On the modern 



126 Principles of Secondary Education 

side there is still a considerable amount of Latin, especially 
in the lower classes, but French and German occupy a large 
place, while the amount of mathematics, geography, and 
history is considerably greater than in the case of the classi- 
cal course. Some schools maintain special Army Classes for 
prospective officers, but inasmuch as the differentiation of 
" sides " is found only in the upper forms, one cannot get 
away from the fact that the English public school boy is still 
brought up in a decidedly classical atmosphere. On what- 
ever " side " he may be enrolled, he is sure to have his daily 
pabulum of Latin throughout the major part of his course, 
for with the public school headmasters Latin still forms the 
absolutely necessary foundation for all intellectual training, 
aside entirely from the fact that it is a required subject for 
university entrance and for most of the government examina- 
tions for which the boys are likely to be preparing. 

Organization. — Theoretically there are six forms (as the 
classes are called), but the first is usually conspicuous by its 
absence, and one or two of the others are frequently missing, 
so that one runs across curious names for divisions and sub- 
divisions of the forms in addition to the commonly found 
"upper" and "lower," such as: "remove," "remove and 
shell," " shell," and the " twenty." Boys enter at thirteen 
or fourteen years of age, and must leave at the latest by the 
time they are nineteen. On account of the desire to fix the 
impress of the school on the boy, most headmasters refuse 
to admit a boy after he is fifteen. Once in the school he is 
allowed to go through as quickly as his abilities will permit. 
There are three terms per year with examinations at the end 
of each, so that it is theoretically possible for the boy to pass 
through three classes per year, even without the double pro- 
motion that he sometimes receives. Thus the fellow who 
rushes along at top speed covering a couple of classes per year 
finds himself in the sixth form relatively young, and then he 
remains attached to this form until he is eighteen or nineteen. 



Secondary EducaHo7t in Europe 



127 



since it is hardly advisable for him to enter the university before 
that time, even where university regulations permit. Mean- 
while he is ripening and developing intellectually, for the 
masters see to it that he has plenty to do, and he has addi- 
tional opportunity to prepare for scholarship competitions. 
From the foregoing, it is perfectly evident that grading and 
promotion are much less rigid than one finds in America. 
The amount of work expected of each class is not excessive, 
for the English public school master takes up his teaching as 
deliberately as he takes up his cricket or his billiards. Little 
is done under high pressure, but he aims to teach his boys the 
subject in question, as well as to develop them physically 
and morally. 

Programs of Studies. — The following programs may give 
a little clearer notion of the nature of the work at two schools, 
Eton, and the Perse School, Cambridge. Neither one is 
typical of the public school programs as a whole, each merely 
indicating the work at its own particular school. In fact 
the " typical " public school program does not exist. Eton 
is one of the oldest and most famous of the public schools. 
The Perse School, although a very old foundation, may be 
called a present-day school dominated by a modern program 
with an extremely classical basis. 



ETON 



Block 


Hours in 

School 
PER Week 


Di- 
vin- 
ity 


Latin 


Greek 


French 


English 


Mathe- 
matics 


Sci- 
ence 


Ex- 
tra 


Draw- 
ing 


A 


22 




15^ 


_ 


2 


— 


_ 


4 


— 


B 


24 




6 5^ 


4 


4 


4 


- 


- 


- 


C 


25 




7 5 


4 


4 


4 


- 


- 


- 


D 


25 




7 6 


3 


2 


3 


3 


- 


- 


E 


25 




II or 12 


4 


3 or 2 


4 


2 


- 


- 


F 


25 




7 A\ 


3 


3l 


5 


— 


— 


I 



1 German may be substituted here for Greek. 



128 Principles of Secondary Education 

At Eton there is a peculiar arrangement of classes whereby 
the school is divided into " blocks." Block A includes the 
sixth and part of the fifth form ; block B , fifth form, upper 
division ; block C, fifth form, middle division ; block D, fifth 
form, lower division ; block E, " remove " ; block F, fourth 
and third forms. There is a special Army Class composed 
of boys looking forward to a military career, but there is no 
regular modern " side." Although geography and history 
do not figure in this schedule at all, the classical master con- 
trives to find some time for them. 

PERSE SCHOOL — CAMBRIDGE 



Form 


English Composi- 
tion AND Literature 


French 


Latin 


Ger- 
man'- 
and 
Greek 


Mathe- 
matics 


Sci- 
ence 


Draw- 
ing 


Sing- 
ing 


Drill 


History and Geog- 
raphy 


V 


6 


6 


8 


6 


6 


4 


_ 


_ 


3 


IV 


6 


6 


8 


6 


6 


4 


- 


- 


3 


III 


II 


6 


6 


- 


6 


6 


I 


- 


3 


II 


13 


6 


6 


- 


6 


3 


I 


I 


3 


I 


15 


9 


~ 


— 


6 


4 


I 


I 


3 



1 Boys from the IV form upwards may take German or Greek or both as 
their parents may deem most desirable. 

Boys in the VI form speciaUze in classics, mathematics, history, modern 
languages, or science, and then time-tables are varied accordingly. 

Sports are compulsory two afternoons per week. 



Training for Leadership. — Athletic sports still occupy a 
very large place in the mind of the public school master as 
well as of the boy. Few printed programs contain any 
schedule for this time, but one can always count upon finding 
two or three afternoons per week occupied in this manner, 
and the exercise is as rigorously demanded of every boy in 
the school as any of his studies. At an English public school, 
every boy is an active and participating member of some 
cricket or football team, of some tennis or rowing club. ' He 



Secondary Education in Europe 129 

is never allowed to take his athletics vicariously from the 
spectators' benches, or even in homoeopathic doses. Such 
large emphasis upon sport has of late given rise to no httle un- 
favorable criticism of the public schools, but it does develop 
bodily vigor, good temper, self-control, the ability to obey 
intelUgently and to command. The average EngKsh public 
school boy will undoubtedly suffer considerably when com- 
pared intellectually with the graduate of the Gymnasium or 
the lycee, but neither one of these continental schools is mak- 
ing a deliberate effort to engender and develop any directive 
ability among its boys. Intellectual attainment is the large 
standard to which they strive to attain. It must be remem- 
bered, furthermore, that the Gymnasium and the lycee are 
both finishing schools, as far as a Uberal education is con- 
cerned. Their graduates are at the threshold of their pro- 
fessional training. The EngHsh boy, on the other hand, has 
still at least a part of his university course to complete before 
his liberal education may be said to be ended. The American 
high-school boy develops a considerable degree of independence 
and initiative, but it is due to a certain laissez-faire system 
that seems to pervade a large part of the American Hf e, private 
as well as institutional. There is no school system or school 
t3rpe in the world to-day that is offering the opportunity for 
discovering, and that is making the deliberate, organized 
effort to develop the capacity for leadership among all its 
membership that one finds in the English public school. 

School Life. — Life at a pubhc school is a rather expensive 
luxury. Tuition alone at one of the less famous schools must 
be reckoned at about £20 ($100) per year, while at Eton the 
fees run up to £150 or £160 ($750 or $800). At a reasonable 
estimate one must count on spending about £300 ($1500) 
per year for the privilege of keeping a boy at Eton. The 
fact that there are scholarships at all the schools does not by 
any means open these schools to the boys of really humble 
parents. The additional expenses that must be met in order 



130 Principles of Secondary Education 

to keep a boy at a public school are such as to deter any but 
parents with relatively, large incomes. The English public 
school is unquestionably a class school, with entrance thereto 
resting primarily upon a financial basis. 

Characteristics of the Public Schools. — The English boy 
of the public-school type leaves home when, he is nine or ten 
years old, remains three or four years at a preparatory school, 
from four to six years at a public school, and finishes up with 
three or four years at the university, throughout this whole 
period spending only the various hoHdays under the family 
roof. He associates entirely with those of his own sex ; he is 
taught exclusively by men ; in fact, throughout the long terms 
at school, the only direct feminine influence that comes into 
his life is the contact with the wife or the family of his 
house master. His is distinctly a masculine environment. It 
would be too much to suggest that this is responsible for the 
fine, manly, vigorous type of English public-school-university 
man, but it certainly is a contributing factor of considerable 
significance. Throughout it all, character building has 
stood for more than intellectual attainment. Not that the 
English system has not produced scholars, but its dominant 
purpose withal has been the development of strong, healthy 
boys, upright and noble, and with a highly skilled training 
in leadership. Herein lies one great difference between the 
English schools and the continental schools that we have been 
considering. Of course the system has its evils, but it has 
also developed its virtues. 

PREPARATORY SCHOOLS. — Preparation for the pub- 
lic school is provided chiefly in a number of private-venture 
schools known as '' preparatory schools." The English 
preparatory school thus differs widely from the American 
school of the same name. The former prepares for the Eng- 
ligh public school ; the latter for the American college. The 
English preparatory school is not a secondary school at all. 
It obtains its pupils from dame schools, other private schools 



Secondary Education in Eui'ope 131 

of an elementary grade, or from private tutors, keeps them 
three or four years, and turns them over at the age of thirteen 
or fourteen to the pubHc schools. These preparatory schools 
are Hkewise boarding schools which reproduce as nearly as 
they can the life and conditions of their successors. 

OTHER TYPES OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS. — Close 
behind the nine great pubHc schools follows another group of 
public schools, including Marlborough, Clifton, Uppingham, 
and the like, some of them schools upon very old founda- 
tions, others dating from the last half of the nineteenth 
century. They all imitate the great public schools more 
or less closely but, whether on account of their youth or 
otherwise, they have never succeeded in accumulating the 
mass of traditions and the illustrious rolls of their more 
famous fellows. On the basis of subjects taught, general 
organization, subservience to the requirements of the older 
universities and scholarship examinations, and dominance of 
the classical influence, only an imaginary differentiation 
exists between these schools and the great public schools. 

Another representative type of the English secondary school 
appears in the great day schools like Dulwich and the Man- 
chester, Bradford, and Bedford Grammar Schools. Although 
many of these are likewise foundation schools and are several 
times centenarians, the non-resident character of their school 
population has not been conducive to the accumulated tradi- 
tion that centers around the boarding pubhc schools. Never- 
theless they are not handicapped by the narrow spirit of 
classicism that still dominates so much of the pubhc school 
hfe, and they have thoroughly organized modern sides, with 
well-equipped laboratories, museums, and shops. 

A fourth class of secondary schools is the ordinary gram.- 
mar school, likewise on private foundation, but with a dis- 
tinctly local following. These are largely imitators of the 
public schools, as far as aims and programs are concerned, 
save that they manage to have acquired most of the short- 



132 Principles of Secondary Education 

comings and but few of the virtues of the older institutions. 
Their fees are lower ; probably two thirds or more of their 
pupils are non-boarders ; their courses are fully as classical 
as are those of the pubHc schools ; their equipment is usually 
most meager, with scanty facilities for science teaching, and 
with the modern language instruction largely inadequate. 

Aside from a very numerous and probably worse than 
mediocre group of distinctly private-venture schools (es- 
timated in 1898 to enroll 40 per cent of the boys, and 70 per 
cent of the girls attending a secondary school), this practi- 
cally covered the opportunities for secondary education in 
England up to the reform act of 1902. Then for the first 
time secondary education became a national concern. It is 
true that various local authorities had provided scholarships 
in the existing secondary schools previous to that period, but 
in view of the fact that as late as 1900 the number of such 
scholarships in secondary schools held by former pupils, both 
boys and girls, of the public elementary schools was only 
between 5000 and 5500 for all England, the opportunities 
for any popular secondary education were relatively neg- 
ligible. Such opportunities are still limited, but the progress 
registered since 1902 is really remarkable. 

EFFECTS OF THE EDUCATION ACT OF 1899. —The 
education act of 1899 made an attempt to whip the various 
conflicting educational interests into line and to reduce the 
chaos to a semblance of order. Much indeed was accom- 
plished at that time as well as by the supplementary legis- 
lation of 1902 and more recent years. All efforts point to a 
closer coordination between elementary and secondary schools, 
and the next legislation, as already outlined by the responsible 
authorities (1913), will undoubtedly make it more and more 
possible for the humblest child who has the requisite intel- 
lectual ability to finish his university course, and thus go far 
toward a complete democratization of English education. 

In accordance with the act of 1899, a national board of 



Secondary Education in Europe 133 

education was created in the spring of 1900, consisting of a 
president and various other members of the cabinet as co- 
adjutors. This has been facetiously called a " phantom " 
board, inasmuch as the full board never meets, the president 
alone constituting a quorum and therefore being empowered 
to determine and to order the policy of the board. As such 
this board has entire charge of public education in England 
and Wales, including within its powers practically all those 
that had previously been distributed among several educa- 
tional and quasi-educational authorities. Below the president 
is a permanent secretary with rather large powers. Al- 
though the president is a member of the ministry with the 
natural uncertainty of tenure attendant thereupon, a measur- 
able continuity of policy is assured through the office of the 
above-mentioned permanent secretary, but this is a guarantee 
by grace rather than by right, such as may be said to exist in 
the systems of France and Germany. The work of the central 
office is further supplemented by a force of inspectors for 
each branch of the service. 

By the act of 1902, the old school boards were legislated 
out of existence, and county councils and county borough 
councils were made the sole authorities in matters of educa- 
tion other than elementary. Thus there were in England and 
Wales (July 31, 191 1), London and forty-nine other adminis- 
trative counties, as well as seventy-one county boroughs 
(towns of 50,000 inhabitants and upwards) whose councils 
exercise entire control over secondary education within their 
respective limits. In each case the practical direction is 
intrusted to an education committee of the larger body, but 
the ultimate financial control is vested in the full council. 
These local authorities are directed to consider the educational 
needs of their districts and take such steps as may seem ad- 
visable after consultation with the Board of Education, in 
order to " supply or aid in supply of education other than 
elementary." In some cases these various councils have 



134 Principles of Secondary Education 

established secondary schools of their own ; in some cases 
they have made grants to or awarded scholarships for schools 
already existing. 

Submission to the control of the Board of Education by 
any secondary school, whether municipal, private, or endowed, 
is a thoroughly voluntary matter on the part of the governing 
body of the school in question. If it desires government aid 
or government recognition, it must conform to government 
requirements and submit to government inspection. Gov- 
ernment recognition is extended to two types of schools : 
(i) those on the grant Hst ; and (2) those recognized as " effi- 
cient " schools not on the grant Hst. The figures for Eng- 
land and Wales (1911-1912) were 995 for the former and 102 
for the latter, enrolling (January 31, 191 2) 166,081 and 
18,975 pupils, respectively, 100,000 boys and 85,000 girls. 
Of the 885 secondary schools in England proper eligible for 
grants in 1911-1912, 381 were controlled by local authorities, 
428 were endowed schools, and the remainder were adminis- 
tered by religious or philanthropic organizations. Among 
these schools falling within the jurisdiction of the Board of 
Education are representatives of all types of secondary schools 
save only the great public schools, which have thus far been 
too jealous of their time-honored freedom to submit to any* 
semblance of control at the hands of the national educational 
authority. 

SECONDARY SCHOOL DEFINED. — According to the 
regulations of the Board, a secondary school is one that 
" offers to each of its pupils an education of a wider scope and 
higher grade than that of an elementary school ... in the 
subjects necessary to a good general education upon lines 
suitable for pupils of an average age-range at least as wide 
as from twelve to sixteen or seventeen." " A school will 
not be recognized as a secondary school unless (i) an adequate 
proportion of the pupils remain at least four years in the 
school, and (2) an adequate proportion of the pupils remain 



Secondary Edttcation in Europe 135 

in the school up to and beyond the age of sixteen." In rural 
districts and small towns, this may be changed to three years 
in place of four, and to fifteen instead of sixteen years of age. 
REGULATIONS OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. — 
Aside from regulations with respect to building and equip- 
ment, approval of curriculum and time-table, length of school 
day and year, adequacy and competence of the teaching staff, 
permanency of salary,^ reasonableness of fees, reports to the 
Board, opportunity for inspection, and various other details, 
the Board insists upon entire freedom from denominational 
tests, requirements as to reUgious observances or attendance 
upon rehgious exercises of the school as far as day pupils are 
concerned, and furthermore demands ordinarily that where 
tuition is charged,^ 25 per cent of the places shall be open to 
qualified pupils from the public elementary schools without 

1 In view of the wide variability in teachers' salaries, it is almost futile to 
quote any figures. The average English assistant master's salary is said to be 
£120 ($600) per year for non-resident teachers. When one finds a university 
graduate living at school beginning on as little as £15 ($75) per year, the pitiful 
condition of some of these unfortunates reminds one of the days of Dotheboys' 
Hall. This same individual finally rose to £140, non-resident, after nine j^ears 
of service. In comparison with this the London County Council scale of £150 
($7So)> rising by £10 annual increments to £300 ($1500), and in special cases to 
£350 ($1750) appears positively munificent. Headmasters' salaries present 
a pleasing contrast, for in some of the endowed schools they run as high as 
£5000 ($25,000), the ordinary average amounting to ten times that of the assis- 
tant masters. Even in municipally supported schools, the difference is con- 
siderable, though probably never reaching this figure. Compared with conti- 
nental salaries, the English assistant master is very much underpaid, and 
the headmaster correspondingly overpaid. 

2 Of the 862 secondary schools in England on the grant list of the Board in 
1910-191 1, municipal as well as endowed, all but one charged fees for instruction 
ranging from "not over one guinea" ($5.25) to "over twenty guineas" per year, 
the average for all schools amounting to between seven and eight guineas, with 
the figure of greatest frequency for the municipal schools falling between six 
and seven guineas, and the charges in the foundation and other schools averag- 
ing about two guineas higher. In forty-six out of fortj^-nine schools under 
Catholic auspices, the fees were not more than nine guineas per year, while in 
twenty-seven out of twenty-nine schools administered by the " Girls' Day School 
Trust," they were between seventeen and eighteen guineas. 



136 Principles of Secoitdary Education 

fee. When all these conditions have been complied with and 
the instruction is otherwise satisfactory, the school is ehgible 
to annual per capita grants from the Board, £2 ($10) for each 
pupil between ten and twelve who has previously attended a 
public elementary school for two years, and £5 ($25) for each 
pupil between twelve and eighteen years of age. Other extra 
or special grants are accorded for conformity to certain specific 
conditions. The total amount of such parUamentary grants 
for current expenses (England alone) under the caption 
" Secondary schools, preparatory classes, pupil-teachers, 
and bursars" for 1910-1911 (almost all of which was for 
secondary schools) amounted to £417,749, approximately 
two milHons of dollars. This sum represents only about 
one quarter of the ordinary current expenses of those same 
schools. 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR FREE EDUCATION. — On Jan- 
uary 31, 191 2, the 995 secondary schools in England and 
Wales on the grant Hst of the Board of Education enrolled 
166,081 boys and girls, of whom 55,703, or 33 per cent, were 
former pubhc elementary school pupils on the free list. The 
excess over the 25 per cent required by the Board is accounted 
for by the inclusion of a number of foundation or other scholar- 
ships offered by the governing bodies of endowed schools. 
This represents an enormous expansion of the opportunity 
for secondary education available for children of the working 
classes when compared with the situation before the passage 
of the act of 1902. In spite of the marvelous progress here 
noted, the opportunities for free education in secondary 
schools are not uniform the country over. In London there 
is one free place for every 70 children over five years of age 
in average attendance at the pubhc elementary schools. 
Westmoreland offers the most favorable opportunities of all 
the English counties, the number of free places reaching as 
high as one in 48, while Oxfordshire falls at the other end of 
the Hst with only one for every 1 70 elementary school children. 



Secondary Edzication in Europe 



137 



Present Conditions. — Despite the efforts of the Board of 
Education to extend the secondary course by suggestion and 
regulation and to hold the pupils in school, the results are 
yet far from satisfactory. Pupils enter too young and leave 
too young. The age distribution is thoroughly surprising 
when one considers that the course of study is planned on 
the assumption of a 12 to 17 year age range, and an "effi- 
cient " school, according to the standard laid down by the 
Board of Education, is supposed to hold " an adequate pro- 
portion " of its pupils ''up to and beyond the age of six- 
teen." For 885 schools in England on the grant list in 191 1- 
191 2, the sex and age distribution January 31, 19 12, was as 
follows : 

SECONDARY SCHOOLS — FULL-TIME PUPILS 

CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO AGE AT BEGINNING OF SCHOOL YEAR 

1911-1912 





Boys 


Girls 


Total 


I Under 1 2 years of age .... 
212 and under 16 years of age . . 

3 16 and under 18 years of age . . 

4 18 years of age and over . . . 


21,752 

54,833 

4,441 

357 


17,675 

43,790 

7,118 

639 


39,427 
98,623 

11,559 
996 




81,383 


69,222 


150,605 



Returns for the years 1908-1911 show that in schools on 
the Board's grant Hst, the average school Hfe after the age of 
twelve of all boys who left during that period was only two 
years and eight months, while for girls under the same con- 
ditions it was one month longer, the average age at leaving 
school being fifteen years and 'seven months, and sixteen 
years, respectively. More efforts are evidently being made 
to lower the age for scholarship ehgibihty than to retain the 
pupils in school until a later age, considerable pressure being 
brought to bear upon the Board to pay grants on all pupils 



138 Principles of Secondary Education 

between ten and twelve years of age instead of restricting 
the basis to the former elementary pupils alone. Economic 
conditions in general, the recent industrial prosperity that 
England has enjoyed, and the large demand for cheap clerical 
labor that young people of a yet tender age can perform satis- 
factorily make it extremely difficult for the greater part of 
the secondary schools over which the Board has jurisdiction 
to hold their pupils beyond the age of fourteen or fifteen 
years. They leave almost in mid-course, just at the time 
when the instruction ought to be of greatest value to them. 

PROGRAM OF STUDIES. — It would be more difficult 
to select a type program for the grant schools or even for those 
under municipal control than in the case of the public schools, 
for the headmaster is given almost unlimited power in the 
matter, the Board contenting itself with very general require- 
ments. In accordance with the provisions of the code, the 
subjects of the program of studies are as follows : English 
language and literature, with at least one other language than 
English. Special permission, however, may be obtained to 
omit the foreign language if the English provides " adequate 
linguistic and literary training." This rather vague expres- 
sion is not defined, and it is left for the Board, or in practice 
for its inspectors, to determine. Geography, history, mathe- 
matics, science, and drawing must also appear in the program, 
together with provision for " organized games, physical 
exercises, manual instruction, and singing." Girls' schools 
further offer " practical instruction in domestic subjects, 
such as needlework, cookery, laundr3rwork, housekeeping, 
and household hygiene ; and an approved course in a com- 
bination of these subjects may for girls over fifteen years of 
age be substituted partially or wholly for science and for 
mathematics, other than arithmetic." If there are two 
languages aside from English, the Board must be satisfied 
that the omission of Latin, if such be done, is for the educa- 
tional advantage of the school. 



Secondary Education in Europe 1 39 

Relatively little advantage has been taken of the possi- 
bihty of omitting Latin, for it still appears (191 2) on the 
programs of 85 per cent of the schools on the grant list. One 
must not infer that this proportion of all the pupils in these 
schools is studying Latin, but merely that the subject is found 
somewhere in the course of that relative number of schools. 
Two decades ago, the emphasis of the education authorities 
was largely in the direction of encouraging science study ; 
later literary instruction came to the fore, with the teaching 
of English occupying the center of attention as far as schools 
that end at the sixteenth year were concerned ; to-day adapta- 
tion to local needs and specialization seem to have monopolized 
the interest. " The school course may, under the elastic 
provisions of the Board's regulations, be given a certain 
bias throughout. Thus in a rural school instruction in all or 
nearly all the subjects taken may have regard to the agricul- 
tural or other rural occupations which the majority of the 
pupils may be expected to take up ; the branches of physical 
science taught may be so chosen and dealt with as to be 
brought into clear connection with their application to such 
occupations ; arithmetic and geometry may be applied in 
practice to such matters as keeping of accounts and land 
surveying, and even the 'instruction in English subjects and 
in modern languages may keep the same object in view." 
Furthermore, the " Board are prepared to approve suitable 
schemes for specialization of higher work in classics, in mathe- 
matics and physical science, in modern languages, taken 
in connection with history or economics, in art, and as 
regards girls in the important group of subjects included 
within the general term of housecraft, such as cookery, 
laundrywork, housekeeping, and household hygiene, dress- 
making, and the care of the sick or of babies and young chil- 
dren." In any event, this specialization can only take place 
after a good general foundation has been laid, facilities for 
such teaching must be adequate, and it may in no case trench 



140 Principles of Secondary Education 

upon the " proper sphere of the technical school or other 
institution of specialized instruction." 

Only by such indirect means as suggestions of this nature 
are the English central educational authorities able to bring 
about changes in the programs of the schools. The Board 
is willing to approve programs of studies showing certain 
characteristics ; approval of programs, other conditions being 
met, means eligibility for grants ; and this ultimately means 
financial support and government backing. Thus is the 
English system of secondary education growing and develop- 
ing. As a system it is still far behind that in France or in 
Germany, but it is yet young ; its opportunities are stretch- 
ing out before ; it has already discarded the old scheme of 
payment by results; and although the ancient system of 
tuition fees still prevails even in municipally supported schools, 
the increasing number of scholarships available for public 
elementary school pupils and the attention being devoted 
to this subject by the present Board lead one to hope that 
the time is not far distant when every child of proved intellec- 
tual ability, whatever the financial condition of his family, 
may find his educational opportunities limited only by his 
own ambitions. 

COMPARATIVE FIGURES FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL 
POPULATION. • — ■ It may be interesting to append com- 
parative statistics showing the secondary school population 
of the three countries just considered, together with that of 
the United States. One must be warned, however, that these 
figures are not altogether parallel, the age limits differing 
materially (England approximately 11 to 18 ; France, 6 to 18 ; 
Prussia, 9 to 18; and the United States, 14 to 18 years), and 
the nomenclature employed following the usage of the country 
in question. 



Secondary Education in Europe 
SECONDARY SCHOOL POPULATION 



141 







Secondary School 




Ratio of School 


Country 


Population 


Pupils 
Boys Girls 


Totals 


Population to 
Total Population 


England 


36,075,269 


96,789 81,573 


178,362 


I : 202 


and Wales 


(1911) 


Grant list and 

''efficient" schools 

(1911) 






France 


39,601,509 


96,791 34,989 


131,780 


I : 300 


(alone) 


(1911) 


Lycees, colleges, 
and secondary- 
courses, France 
and Algeria 
(1910) 






Prussia 


40,163,333 
(1910) 


232,792 95,492 

Public higher 

schools {Hohere 

Schulen) 

(1911) 


328,284 


1 : 122 


United 


91,972,266 


489,048 616,312 


1,105,360 


i: 83 


States 


(1910) 


Public high 

schools 
(1911-1912) 







TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. Compare the secondary school organization in France and Germany. 

2. Compare compulsory attendance regulations in France, Germany, 
and England. 

3. Compare advantages and disadvantages of centralized school con- 
trol. 

4. Compare school athletics in France, Germany, and England. 

5. Compare length of the school year in France, Germany, England, 
and the United States. 

6. Compare aims and methods of instruction of each subject of 
secondary school study in any of the foreign school systems. 

7. Compare influence of national ideals in determining aims and 
methods of instruction of the various subjects of instruction. 

8. Formal spelling does not figure among the subjects of instruction 
even in the elementary classes of the secondary schools abroad. How 
is this subject taught ? 



142 Principles of Secondary Education 

9. Make a diagram showing comparative lengths of secondary courses 
in France, Germany, England, and the United States. 

10. Compare the time allotment for any subject of instruction in a 
foreign secondary school with that of the corresponding subject in the 
United States. 

11. In the French and German secondary schools most subjects con- 
tinue throughout the course. Contrast the results of this method with 
those obtained from the practice which prevails in the United States of 
pursuing a few subjects intensively. 

12. How do you account for the existence of the American practice 
as noted above ? 

13. The training of secondary teachers abroad. 

14. The position of the teacher in any foreign school system in com- 
parison with his position in the United States. 

15. Teachers' pensions in France and Germany. 

16. To what extent have the school organization, aims, or methods 
of instruction in any foreign secondary school system influenced the 
corresponding development in the United States ? 

17. Contrast an English "Public" School with an American public 
school. (Select a particular school in each instance.) 

18. Evaluate the attainments of the French or German boy on leaving 
the secondary school in terms of American educational progress. 

REFERENCES — FRANCE 

Assistant Masters' Association, England. Conditions of Service of 
Teachers in English and Foreign Secondary Schools. London, 1910. 

Documents : 

Bulletin administratif du Minister e de V instruction puhlique (weekly). 

Official publication of the Education Department. 
Enquete sur V enseignement secondaire. Report of the Ribot Commis- 
sion. Paris, 1899. 

CoMPAYRE, G. Education in France. In Monroe, Cyclopedia of 
Education. New York, 1911. 

Faruington, F. E. French Secondary Schools. New York, 1910. 

GiRARD, R. DE. Questions d'' enseignement secondaire. Paris, 1905. 

Great Britain, Board of Education, Special Reports on Educational Sub- 
jects. Vol. XXIV, Secondary and University Education in France. 
Contains a complete English translation of the present secondary 
school curriculum. 

Hughes, R. E. The Making of Citizens; a Study in Comparative Edu- 
cation. New York, 1902. 



Secondary Education iri Europe 143 

Langlois, Ch. V. La Question de V enseignemcnt secondaire en France 

ct a Vetranger. Paris, 1900. 
Perkins, H. A. The Educational System of France. Educ. Rev., 

March, 191 1. 
Plan d'etudes et programmes d'enseignement dans les lycecs et colleges de 

garqons. Paris, 1913. 
Plan d'ehides et programmes d' enseignejnent dans les lycees et colleges de 

jeunes filles. Paris, 1913. 
Sadler, M. E. The Unrest in Secondary Education in Germany and 

Elsewhere. In Great Britain, Board of Education, Special Reports 

on Educational Subjects. Vol. IX. London, 1902. 
United States Bureau of Education. Reports of the Commissioner of 

Education (annual). Especially. 1906, I, pp. 19-26 (discussion of 

the "law of separation") ; 1907, I, pp. 142-157 ; 1908, I, pp. 230- 

238; 1909, I, pp. 420-432. 

REFERENCES — GERMANY 

Assistant Masters' Association, England. Conditions of Service of Teachers 
in English and Foreign Secondary Schools. London, 1910. 

Bolton, F. E. The Secondary School System of Germany. New York, 
1900. 

Brown, J. F. The Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools in Ger- 
many and the United States. New York, 191 1. 

Great Britain, Board of Education, Special Reports on Educational Subjects. 
Vol. I, The Realschulen in Berlin. — The Oberrealschulen of Prussia. 
Vol. Ill, Problems in Prussian Secondary Education for Boys. — 
Curricula and Programs. Vol. XX, Teaching of Classics in Prus- 
sian Secondary Schools. 

GiJLDNER, H. Die hoheren Lehranstalten fiir die weibliche Jugend in 
Preussen. Halle, 1913. 

Hughes, R. E. The Making of Citizens; a Study in Comparative Edu- 
cation. New York, 1902. 

Lexis, W. Das Unterrichtswesen im deutschen Reich, Vol. II. Berlin, 
1904. 

Norwood, C, and Hope, A. H. Higher Education of Boys in England. 
London, 1909. 

Paulsen, F. German Education Past and Present. Trans, by Lorenz. 
New York, 1908. 

Prettyman, C. W. Higher Girls' Schools of Prussia. Teachers College 
Record, May, 1911. 

Russell, J. E. German Higher Schools. 2d ed. New York, 1905. 



144 Principles of Secondary Education 

Sadler, M. E. The Unrest in Secondary Education in Germany and 
Elsewhere. In Great Britain, Board of Education, Special Reports 
on Educational Subjects. Vol. IX. London, 1902. 

Statistisches Jahrhuch der hoheren Schulen (annual). Leipzig. 

United States Bureau of Education. Reports of the Commissioner of 
Education (annual). Articles usually appear under Education 
in Central Europe. 

ZiERTMANN, P. Education in Germany. In Monroe, Cyclopedia of 
Education. New York, 191 2. 

REFERENCES — ENGLAND 

Assistant Masters' Association, England. Conditions of Service of 

Teachers in English and Foreign Secondary Schools. London, 1910. 
Balfour, G. Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland. 2d 

ed. Oxford, 1903. 
Board of Education. Reports {zxmMal). Latest 191 1-1912. 
Statistics of Public Education in England and Wales (annual). 

Part I. Educational. Latest 1910-1911. 

Part II. Financial. Latest 1910-1911-1912. 
Office of Special Inquiries and Reports. 

Educational Pamphlets. See particularly series on The Modern Side 
at Secondary Schools. 

Special Reports on Educatiojtal Subjects. Vols. I, XXII. 
BuRSTALL, S. A., and Douglas, M. A. Public Schools for Girls. London, 

1911. 
CoRBiN, J. Schoolboy Life in England. New York, 1898. 
Hughes, R. E. The Making of Citizens; a Study in Comparative Edu- 
cation. New York, 1902. 
MacLean, a. H. H. The Law of Secondary Schools. London, 1909. 
MiNCHiN, J. G. C. Our Public Schools; their Influence on English 

History. London, 1901. 
Montmorency, J. E. G. de. National Education and National Life. 

London, 1906. 
Progress of Education in England. English Educational Organization 

from Early Times to igo4. London, 1904. 
Norwood, C, and Hope, A. H. Higher Education of Boys in England. 

London, 1909. 
Public Schools from Within. London, 1906. 
Public Schools Yearbook (annual). London. 
Sandieord, p. The Training of Teachers in England and Wales. New 

York, 19 10. 



Secondary Education in Europe 145 

Schoolmasters' Yearbook (annual). London. 

Smith, A. S. Education in England. In Monroe, Cyclopedia of Edu- 
cation. New York, 191 1. 

United States Bureau of Education. Reports of the Commissioner of 
Education (annual). Chapters on Education in Great Britain and 
Ireland. Especially 191 1, I, pp. 541-550. 

YoxALL, J. H., and Gray, E. The Red Code (annual). London. Con- 
tains official regulations of the Board of Education. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEMS OF THE UNITED 
STATES 

STATE SYSTEMS. — The high school of the United States 
has, upon the whole, evolved from the free elementary school. 
Its development has followed that of its progenitor by ap- 
proximately a quarter of a century, so that in many states 
it remains as yet almost entirely unsystematized, so far as 
the legal aspect is concerned. 

Legal Provisions. — In a number of states, only the most 
general legal provision is made for the establishment and 
maintenance of such schools, while in a few of the Southern 
and in at least one of the Northern states, New Jersey, no 
special legal provision is made for them, such schools as exist 
being considered merely as the higher grades of the public 
schools. Most of the states have, however, made definite 
legal provision for these schools, and a large number, such 
as Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, and California, have evolved comprehensive 
independent laws governing the establishment, maintenance, 
and management of such schools. But the legal provisions 
even of these states differ widely among themselves, so that 
the laws governing this institution in the United States range 
from indefinite and badly defined codes in certain states to 
clear and specific legislation in others. 

The General Type. — Nevertheless the high schools in 
the various states have a remarkable resemblance in external 
and internal management and control, as well as in their 
curricula. In general no greater differences exist internally 

146 



High School Systems of the United States 147 

between the high schools of Maine and those of Cahfomia 
than may be found to exist between the different high schools 
of any given commonwealth. This similarity is due to a 
number of factors in American Hfe and American educational 
practices. In the first place, the elementary schools, the 
feeders of the high schools, resemble one another even more 
closely than do the high schools. The colleges, the universi- 
ties, and particularly the state universities, the institutions 
that largely receive the output of the high schools, also closely 
resemble one another. 

The explanation of this close resemblance of the various 
types of schools in the American system of education is largely 
due to imitation, brought about by the following facts and 
conditions : (i) most of the states of the Union are relatively 
new and their populations have been largely recruited from 
the other older states; (2) the Americans are a migrating 
peopkj and recognize no state boundaries in their shifting 
from place to place ; (3) there is wide communication through 
travel, books, and periodicals ; (4) national and state con- 
ventions of teachers, principals, and superintendents are held 
annually, — the state conventions usually employing outside 
instructors to present the work ; (5) teachers are to a con- 
siderable extent recruited from the country at large rather 
than from the local community and state alone ; (6) students 
frequently leave their own communities and state to prepare 
for their work of teaching. In addition the laws governing 
the establishment, maintenance, and support of all of these 
types of schools have been more or less influenced by the laws 
and practices of other states. 

In no point, however, do the high schools of the Union so 
closely resemble one another as in their curricula. This is due 
to the fact that this institution has been, and is to-day, fun- 
damentally a preparatory school to the colleges and univer- 
sities, which by association and concerted action have set a 
more or less definite standard of requirement for entrance. 



148 Principles of Secondary Education 

and thus to a large degree have dictated a common curriculum 
for these schools. 

Ever since the rise of the high school in this country its 
ablest advocates have dreamed of it as the finishing college 
of the common people ; but as yet the fruition of this dream 
has not been accomplished, — unless, indeed, the college pre- 
paratory course can be considered the best preparation for 
social efficiency. This condition has been no more the fault 
of the college and the university than of those who have in- 
sisted upon a different curriculum, but who in the past have 
been unable to evolve one definite enough to be workable in 
many of the thousands of high schools of the country. How- 
ever, the present widespread interest in vocational, indus- 
trial, technical, commercial, and economic training, and the 
growing interest in the refinement of the other common aspects 
of life, together with the practical experiments now going on, 
give a renewed promise for the fruition of this dream of a 
people's college. The American high school, then, in so far 
as it is efficient, owes this efficiency in large measure to the 
college and the university. 

The systematizing of any series of schools of a given type 
means their unification ; and this can be secured only through 
the operation of one or more of the four following instrumen- 
talities : similar laws governing their establishment, main- 
tenance, and support ; like curricula ; supervision and in- 
spection ; and teachers with similar ideals and training. 

Organization of Control. — The most prevalent local politi- 
cal unit of organization for the establishment, maintenance, 
control, and support of high schools in the United States is 
the district, which includes the city or parts of the city, the 
town or small city, the village, the rural district, or a union 
of such districts. This system prevails in all of the states 
in so far as it applies to the cities and larger towns, and in 
some states it is the only unit of organization for the estab- 
lishment of such schools. In most instances the local board 



High School Systems of the United States 149 

of school directors or school trustees, which also has charge 
of the local lower schools, controls these schools. 

In the rural districts of many of the Eastern and Middle 
Western states the township unit of organization prevails 
both for elementary and for high school purposes. In cer- 
tain of these states the district unit of organization prevails 
for elementary school purposes, while the township unit 
prevails for high school purposes. In most of them there 
are also union or joint township high schools in existence. 
The boards of education which are in control of these schools 
are elected by the people of the territorial districts maintaining 
them. In some of the Southern, Western, Rocky Mountain, 
and Pacific Coast states many county high schools exist, and 
in at least a few cases Joint county high schools. These 
schools are always under the control either of the county 
boards of education, which have also duties relating to the 
elementary schools, or of special county or joint county high 
school boards. In a few states these boards are appointed by 
the county courts, in others by the county commissioners 
or supervisors, and in the remainder of the cases they are 
elected by the people. 

Rural High Schools. — Since in general the towns and 
villages of the United States with populations to exceed 2500 
are able to m.aintain reputable high schools, and since they 
have for years been doing so, the main problem of rural 
secondary education has to do mostly with that part of the 
population residing in the smaller villages and on the farms 
of the country. The units of organization for rural high 
school purposes vary widely in the different sections of the 
country as well as in some of the states themselves, the small- 
est of these units being the district. These district high 
schools, in so far as they may be classed as rural, have largely 
grown out of the elementary schools through the gradual 
addition of high school subjects and high school grades. 
This is particularly true in such states as have had the dis- 



150 Principles of Secondary Education 

trict unit of organization and control in matters of education. 
In every state where the unit of control is such, and where 
the law has failed to define the pubHc school as a strictly- 
elementary school, rural high schools have grown up as dis- 
trict schools. The union of districts for high school purposes 
is also an outgrowth of the gradual extension of the elementary 
school. As a type it is the result of combining two or more 
advanced district schools that had already developed con- 
siderable high school work in connection with their elementary 
courses. The township unit of organization is more prevalent 
than the district unit, in so far as the term appKes to such 
rural high schools as have state recognition as such. This is 
a perfectly natural condition, since in most of the older and 
wealthier states, the Eastern and Middle Western groups, 
the township constitutes the unit of taxation and organization 
for public school as well as other civil purposes. The method 
of uniting townships into high school districts has also been 
employed to a considerable extent, particularly where the 
townships covered a small area, or where their most thickly 
populated areas were adjacent. The county plan of organiza- 
tion . is quite largely practiced in the Western and in certain 
of the Southern states. This plan of organization almost 
always implies large local support, and is especially adaptable 
to thinly populated districts. Village and town districts 
sometimes unite with their counties or with their own town- 
ships or with a group of adjacent townships in the establish- 
ment and maintenance of union high schools. In fact, in a 
large number of the states any combination of unit areas may 
organize itself into a high school district. 

Curriculum. — The courses of study in the rural high schools 
are very similar to those of the city high schools in the states 
wherein they are located. The most notable difference is 
that they offer a smaller number of courses, which is a direct 
result of the small teaching force employed and of the small 
number of pupils in attendance. Most of the states, recog- 



High School Systems of the Uiiited States 151 

nizing that these schools are at least in theory finishing in- 
stitutions, have required one course of instruction other than 
the classical, making the foreign languages elective, if offered 
at all. In most cases, however, these schools give also a 
college preparatory course, including at least one foreign 
language, usually Latm, though the modern languages are 
rapidly gaining ground. 

The present tendency is to create for these schools courses 
of a more practical nature. This is to be accomplished by 
modifying the courses and instruction in the sciences, and 
adding courses in agriculture, stock raising, dairying, horti- 
culture, and other practical subjects, as demanded by the 
particular school. So far little of a practical nature has been 
accompHshed in this line. In fact, in regard to practical 
education, the cities are at the present time far in advance 
of the rural districts. Some of the Middle Western states, 
such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nebraska, have made 
considerable progress in this line. 

Another tendency worthy of note is that of recognizing and 
aiding rural high schools which offer only a partial course of 
study, particularly the two-year rural and small village high 
school. Such schools are becoming common in the upper 
Mississippi Valley, though as yet only a few states have granted 
them any special financial encouragement. California, with 
its two-year " Grammar-High " schools, is a notable exception 
in this particular. 

Statistical Summary. — A statistical statement of the 
number and condition of the strictly rural high schools in 
this coimtry is not possible, because, as pointed out above, 
the statistics of rural high schools proper are combined with 
those of all villages and towns having populations that do 
not exceed 8000 inhabitants. The increase in the number 
of reputable non-urban high schools is a good index to the 
vitality of the institution at the present time. 

The following statistical summary is based on an extended 



152 Principles of Secoiidary Education 

study of twenty states selected because of their availability 
for the purpose. These were Maine, Massachusetts, New 
Jersey, CaHfornia, Colorado, Washington, Connecticut, Ver- 
mont, New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, Kansas, and 
Nebraska. The high school and other necessary statistics 
for these states for the nine years ending 1906 were compiled, 
and interpreted with the following general results : 

(i) The average increase in the number of rural ^ high schools 
in the twenty states was, for the nine-year period, 50 per cent. 
(2) The average relative ^ increase in the enrollment of pupils 
in the urban ^ high schools of the twenty states was, for the 
nine years, 46 per cent, while for the non-urban ^ high schools 
it was, for the same period, 65 per cent. (3) The average in- 
crease to the school in the number of teachers employed in 
non-urban high schools was, for the nine years, more than 
19 per cent. (4) The average decrease in the relative number 
of one-teacher high schools was, for the nine years, more than 
11 per cent. (5) The average decrease in the relative number 
of two-teacher high schools was, for the nine years, more than 
33 per cent. 

The general methods employed by different states in ex- 
tending financial aid to rural secondary education are varied, 
and are discussed in the following section. 

The influence of this aid upon the rural high schools of 
these states is clearly shown by the following comparison of 
the average development of rural secondary education during 
a period of nine years, 1897-1906, in six states, Minnesota, 
California, Massachusetts, Washington, Wisconsin, and Maine, 
— all of which provided state subsidies to rural high schools 
and two of which also provided for the reimbursement of 

^ All high schools not located in cities with a poptilation exceeding 8000 
inhabitants. 

^ Enrollment for each year compared with census, five to eighteen years. 
^ High schools in cities with 8000 or more inhabitants. 



High School Systems of the United States 153 

tuitions, — with the average development of rural secondary- 
education during the same period in eleven states, Nebraska, 
Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, New 
Jersey, Iowa, Missouri, and Texas, none of which provided 
direct state aid to secondary education in any manner what- 
ever. The results were as follows : 

(i) The average increase in the number of non-urban high 
schools was, for the six states, 68 per cent, for the eleven 
states, 48 per cent. (2) The average increase in the number 
of teachers employed to the school in non-urban districts 
was, for the six states, 38 per cent, reckoned on an average 
status of 2.4 teachers to the school in 1897 ; for the eleven 
states 6.5 per cent, reckoned upon an average status of 2.5 
teachers to the school in 1897. (3) During these nine years 
the average relative proportion (.25) of one- teacher high 
schools in the six states was reduced 63 per cent; in the 
eleven states the average relative proportion (.27) was in- 
creased 15 per cent. (4) During the same period the average 
relative proportion (.52) of two-teacher high schools in the 
six states was reduced 53 per cent, while in the eleven states 
the average relative proportion (.44) was increased 2 per cent. 
(5) The average status of enrollment of pupils in all types of 
secondary schools, 4.44 individuals to each 100 of census (5- 
18), in the six states in 1897 was increased during the nine 
years 57 per cent, while in the eleven states the average status 
of enrollment, 3.68 individuals to each 100 of census (5-18), 
was increased but 39 per cent. (6) The average status ck^ 
enrollment of pupils in city high schools, 4.81 individuals to 
each 100 of census (5-18), in the six states in 1897, was in- 
creased during the nine years 52 per cent, while in the eleven 
states the average status of enrollment, 4.13 individuals to 
each one hundred of census (5-18), was increased 49 per cent. 
(7) The average status of enrollment of pupils in non-urban 
high schools, 2.85 individuals to each 100 of census (5-18), 
in the six states in 1897 was increased during the nine years 



154 Principles of Secondary Education 

loo per cent, while in the eleven states the average status of 
enrollment, 2.49 individuals to each 100 of census (5-18), was 
increased 49 per cent. 

Thus it appears that the rapidly developing standard of 
rural secondary education in the states that provide special 
financial aid is slowly approaching the increasing standard of 
the same in the cities of these states. On the other hand, it 
appears that the rapidly increasing standard of rural second- 
ary education in the states that offer no special aid is slowly 
diverging from the constantly increasing standard of the same 
in the cities of these states. On the whole the general in- 
crease of standard of urban as well as non-urban secondary 
education has been very rapid in recent years. 

MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT.— It isonly within recent 
years that any real attempt to aid in the maintenance of sec- 
ondary schools has been made by the states or counties, and the 
giving of such aid, though becoming more common each year, 
is still not a general feature of our state school systems. In 
some states no distinctions are made between common or 
elementary schools and high or secondary schools, either in 
statistics or in finance. Commimities which maintain second- 
ary schools are placed on the same footing as communities 
that do not, with the result that the maintenance of a high 
school is purely a local burden. Secondary education is, 
comparatively speaking, so recent an undertaking that most 
states have not as yet made any definite provision for the 
equalization of its advantages. These schools, however, have 
recently grown greatly in popular favor, due in part to the 
need of increased education to meet the changed conditions 
of life, to the introduction of new studies and methods of 
instruction, and to the changed conception of the purpose 
of secondary instruction. The result is that the high school 
is destined soon to be a regular and a necessary part of our 
systems of public instruction and that high school facihties 
will be provided for all. This change in attitude is certain 



High School Systems of the United States 155 

to add force to the demand for some form of general aid for 
secondary, as well as for elementary, instruction. The main- 
tenance of elementary schools and a state university, and the 
refusal to help in the maintenance of secondary schools, is 
not a logical position for a state to assume. 

The expense of maintaining secondary schools is so much 
greater than that for elementary schools, due to the need of 
better trained and more expensive teachers, smaller classes, 
the smaller number enrolled, and more expensive teaching 
equipment, that the need of some general aid is apparent, if 
they are to be developed at all generally. This is accentuated 
by the fact that the cost for elementary schools is also in- 
creasing, and that the money now at hand and originally in- 
tended for the support of elementary schools alone is rapidly 
proving insufficient for the support of both classes of schools. 
Many communities are at present trying to support a full 
twelve-year school system with funds hardly sufficient to 
maintain the elementary schools properly. 

Such provision as has been made by the different states 
extends from mere permission to communities to form such 
schools and to tax themselves to pay for them, — which is 
analogous to the first legislative permission to the people of 
a community to organize a taxing district and tax every one 
for the support of an elementary school, — to a general state 
tax levied for the support of secondary education and appor- 
tioned and used for that purpose alone. The first is the mere 
beginning and the second is the culmination of the process, 
and between the two are many intermediate plans for the 
granting of some degree of aid to secondary schools. 

Stages in Development. — Mere permission to cities, towns, 
districts, and unions of districts to form a high school and to 
tax themselves to pay for it must be regarded as the first 
step in the process of the evolution of a system of general 
aid to secondary education. A petition and an election are 
the usual preHminary steps, and after the formation of the 



156 Principles of Secondary Education 

high school district an annual local tax, frequently of a limited 
amount, is permitted for the support of the school. Some- 
times such schools are under the control of a separate school 
board, known as a high school board, and sometimes the board 
which has control of the elementary schools merely takes 
charge of the high school also. A number of states have 
taken this first step, but have not gone further. The next 
step is found where the principle of local support is re- 
tained, but the taxing is extended to a larger area, as to the 
county as a whole. In states which have taken this step, 
common in the West, we find the county high school. The 
common features of these permissive high school laws are 
the necessity of a petition asking for the submission of the 
question of the formation of a county high school to a vote 
of the people, a special election to decide the question, the 
appointment or election of a board of trustees for the school, 
an annual county tax for support, free tuition in the school 
to all residents of the county, and usually provision for the 
dissolution of the school, after a time, if desired, by vote of 
the people. With the formation of a second county high 
school at some other place, or with the segregation of a cer- 
tain district or districts to form a local high school separate 
from the county high school, the process of subdivision of 
the high school district has begun. 

The next step in granting aid to high schools is taken when 
the state begins to make a series of grants, or subsidies, to aid 
secondary schools. A number of states have taken this step, 
though the plan has been worked out but poorly in most of 
the states. The granting of such aid naturally stimulates 
the development of high schools, and if the appropriation to 
pay the grants or subsidies is not of a flexible form, and one 
that increases with the growth of the schools, the result will 
be a failure to provide the aid intended. Where a definite 
legislative appropriation has to be made to pay the grant, 
as in a number of the states, the appropriation is likely to fail 



High School Systetits of the United States 157 

to increase as fast as the schools do, and the result is a forced 
scaling down of the grant. In Minnesota, for example, the 
state aid determined upon was $1000 to each properl}^ ap- 
proved school, but the schools increased so much faster than 
did the appropriation that the grants were scaled lower and 
lower for a number of years. The same thing happened in 
Pennsylvania. This gives an uncertainty to the value of the 
grant which makes the method less desirable than other plans 
that can be devised. The method, also, places all of the 
premium on the mere existence of the school, but none on 
the employment of a sufficient number of teachers to do the 
work properly, or on the addition of such subjects of instruc- 
tion as will make the school of greater worth. A school with 
only a single " classical course " stands on the same footing, 
so far as state aid is concerned, with another school which 
employs relatively more teachers and offers two or three 
courses of instruction. The second school will cost much 
more per capita to maintain, assuming that the two are 
located in somewhat the same kind of communities, and will 
attract more students and will render a much larger educa- 
tional service, but under the lump subsidy plan of aid it will 
receive no greater reward than the smaller and poorer school. 
If it is worth while to aid secondary education at all, then 
the state ought so to apportion its aid as to place a premium 
on the giving of instruction under good educational conditions. 
The subsidy method places no premium on growth or better 
instruction, and makes the position of the state as to the im- 
provement of existing conditions a purely negative one. The 
subsidy method marks the beginnings of state aid, and ought 
to be abandoned as soon as possible for a better form of 
assistance. If the subsidy plan is to be used, it ought to be 
graded both as to years and character of instruction offered, 
and the power to grant, scale down, or withhold the grant 
ought to be centrahzed in some responsible educational body 
possessing powers of inspection. The one marked merit of 



158 Principles of Seco7idary JEducation 

the subsidy plan, where graded subsidies are employed based 
on the number of years of instruction offered, is that it places 
a premium on the development of two-year and three-year 
high schools, as well as four-year schools. Any good instruc- 
tion beyond the grammar school, even if for only one year 
and given to only a few pupils, is a stimulating influence 
which reacts most favorably on all lower instruction. Two- 
year high schools frequently develop into four-year high 
schools, and communities are usually able to provide two years 
of instruction before they would be able to provide a fully 
equipped four-year high school. 

Types of Highest Development. — California and New 
Jersey stand as examples of states which have reached the 
culmination of the process. In both states the high school 
has been adopted as a part of the state school system, though 
by a somewhat different method in each. In California the 
complete adoption of the high school has come through the 
provision of separate and special taxation for the support of 
high schools and by a constitutional provision that the in- 
come from the state school fund, and the proceeds of all 
previous taxation, can be used only for the support of ele- 
mentary schools. This forever prevents the robbing of the 
elementary schools to maintain high schools, a process which 
goes on in many of our states. For the support of the high 
schools of the state a special state tax for high schools is levied 
and apportioned. To keep the income for this purpose con- 
stantly up to the needs of the schools, it has been provided 
that the tax to be levied shall be determined annually' by 
multiplying the number of high school pupils in average daily 
attendance in the state the preceding year by $15, which re- 
quires a state tax of approximately i| mills. This is then 
apportioned to all approved high schools in the state on the 
following basis: one third equally to all schools, regardless 
of size, and two thirds to all schools on the basis of aver- 
age daily attendance. The apportionment plan could be im- 



High School Systems of the United States 159 

proved still further by making a partial apportionment on 
the basis of the number of teachers actually employed. 
Length of term is here a negHgible factor, because all schools 
are required to maintain a term of at least 180 days to receive 
any aid. New Jersey offers an example of the complete in- 
corporation of secondary education into the state school 
system. Here the apportionment of school funds is made 
to high schools as to elementary schools, on the teacher basis, 
viz. $400 for every teacher actually employed in each high 
school, and the remainder on a basis of so much per pupil per 
day in actual attendance, in all kinds of schools. The ap- 
portionment of state aid to a high school is thus made on a 
plan similar to a kindergarten, primary school, or grammar 
school. All belong to the same state school system, all share 
in the apportionment of funds, and all are paid out of a com- 
mon fund. The value of such a plan, if sufficient revenue 
can be obtained, is at once evident. High schools cease to 
be a separate part of the school system, and become an in- 
tegral part of the system of pubHc instruction. The state 
then rewards a community's efforts according to the amount 
of instruction provided, as measured by the number of teachers 
employed, and according to the actual amount of work done, 
as measured by the attendance upon the instruction offered. 
If a rural union school will provide only the ninth-grade work, 
and thus give the boys and girls in the rural districts a taste 
of something beyond the common school branches, the state 
will reward such an effort by a grant for both the teacher 
employed and the extra attendance resulting. If a village 
will employ one additional teacher and provide two years of 
high school instruction, the state will similarly reward such 
effort. To the large city school the state offers a similar 
standing premium on additional effort, every new teacher 
and line of work added receiving additional aid. The sim- 
plicity, justice, and automatic adjustment of the plan to com- 
munity needs and efforts are strong points in its favor. One 



i6o Principles of Secondary Education 

thing, though, which ought always to accompany such a 
complete incorporation of the high schools into the public 
school system, is a proportional increase of available funds, 
with provision for an automatic increase. There is no wis- 
dom in incorporating high schools into the state school system 
if the elementary schools are to be made to pay the bills. 

Basis of Apportionment. — Such an incorporation of high 
schools into the system of public instruction is not possible 
if the census basis of apportionment is used. The essential 
unit in higher, as in elementary, instruction, is the teacher 
who must be employed to teach the pupils, and not the num- 
ber of pupils alone. Under a combination of teachers-actually- 
employed and attendance bases, as used in New Jersey, the 
high school is placed on the same basis as any other school, 
and thus becomes an integral part of the system of pubHc 
instruction. The California and the New Jersey plans are 
the best that have been evolved for the support and incor- 
poration of high schools. The CaHfornia plan is especially 
meritorious in that it provides a separate and a large fund for 
aid to secondary education, and the New Jersey plan is es- 
pecially commendable in that it establishes one organization. 
In view of the possibility of a reorganization of the plans for 
upper grammar grade and high school instruction this must 
be considered an important gain. If in the future a six-year 
high school should prove to be a desirable addition to our 
school work, the present somewhat rigid classification in 
some states would stand in the way. 

Another form of support for high schools comes in the at- 
tempt to abolish tuition fees for those children who do not 
happen to live in high school districts. Children who live in 
cities, towns, or districts which maintain high schools of 
course have free high school tuition, but children who live in 
adjoining districts which are not a part of some high school 
district are almost invariably forced to pay a tuition charge, 
and this is frequently made very high for the purpose of re- 



High School Systems of the United States i6i 

ducing the attendance of such outside pupils. The unfair- 
ness of such tuition charges is at once evident, and a number 
of states have attempted to do away with them. The method 
employed in doing so varies in different states. In Indiana 
the pupil applies in person for a transfer, which, if granted, 
carries with it the payment of fees ; in Ohio the township 
from which the pupil comes is directed to assume the fees ; 
in Wisconsin a bill is presented by the school receiving the 
pupil to the district from which he comes, and then a tax is 
levied to pay the bill ; in Massachusetts the town in which 
the pupil resides must pay the tuition charge, unless it is one 
of a class of poorer and smaller towns, in which case the state 
pays the bill ; and in Connecticut the state reimburses towns 
for two thirds of the tuition paid, and will also pay one half 
of the cost of transportation. In Cahfornia a very simple 
and very effective method has recently been worked out, 
whereby every child in the state has free high school privileges. 
The county superintendent of schools of each county is re- 
quired to estimate annually the number of probable high school 
pupils for the coming year who live in non-high-school terri- 
tory, and then to have levied by the county authorities a 
county high-school-tuition tax sufficient to pay the tuition 
charge of all non-high-school district pupils in the nearest or 
most convenient high school. As the state pays the high 
schools for all pupils in average daily attendance, this includes 
state aid to all. It remains purely optional with a district now 
whether it will form a high school of its own, join a high school 
district already in existence, or pay its tax for the tuition of 
non-high-school pupils. In any case the cost is paid by general 
taxation, levied on all property for high school purposes. 

THE INSPECTION AND ACCREDITING OF SCHOOLS. 
— This phase of high school administration is primarily one of 
relationship between the secondary schools and the colleges, 
and has to do chiefly with methods of transferring students 
from high school to college. 



1 62 Principles of Secondary Education 

Considered historically and broadly there are found in the 
United States but two methods of admission to college : 
{a) personal examination of the applicant, — the Eastern 
method ; (&) accrediting of the fitting school, — the Western 
method. 

The examination method is the older; but originally this 
was a purely personal affair between the appHcant and the 
college teacher. The " examination," quite informal and 
usually oral, was designed only incidentally to test the boy's 
knowledge, but mainly to acquaint the college teacher with 
his prospective student's tastes, habits, and antecedents. 

However, as the number of applicants increased, this in- 
formal, individual method became unwieldy, and was finally 
superseded by formal, written examinations, set by the college. 
Thus by and within this method the valuable element of 
personal contact between college teacher and would-be stu- 
dent was wholly lost. 

Further, in the North Atlantic states, where the examina- 
tion method began and found its fullest development, schools 
and colleges were mainly private institutions, without any 
feeling of institutional relationship, without the sense of 
coherency and solidarity of a common educational pur- 
pose. As for educational system — there was none. Each 
college was a law unto itself ; independent and answerable 
to none, it determined and defined its own entrance require- 
ments and held its own entrance examinations upon its own 
premises ; while the schools knew no law except that which 
was laid upon them by the colleges. Too frequently this 
law had little reference to the proper problems of secondary 
education. The term " atomistic " best describes such an 
educational condition. 

While this condition of individuahsm continued with lit- 
tle change until very recent times, one modification may be 
noted. Some of the larger eastern colleges, which draw 
students from a wide area, have come, in recent times, to 



High School Systems of the United States 163 

hold their examinations at various geographical centers, thus 
relieving somewhat the hardship incident to long trips with 
uncertain results. 

The latest and only important development of the examina- 
tion system is the estabhshment of an examination board. 
Such a board, called the College Entrance Examination Board 
of the Middle states and Maryland, was organized in New 
York City in 1901. The organizers were representatives from 
certain leading colleges and secondary schools of the Middle 
Atlantic states. The chief purposes of the Board were : [a) to 
hold at many points, here and abroad, uniform college entrance 
examinations, the constituent colleges agreeing to discon- 
tinue their own examinations and accept the Board's results ; 
(&) to define and standardize the college entrance " units " in 
the different subjects. 

The plan was welcomed by both schools and colleges, es- 
pecially in the East, as a vast improvement upon the old 
methods ; and the operations of the Board have within the 
decade of its existence greatly extended. Its examinations 
are now held in practically all civilized countries, and the 
results are accepted by every college and university in the 
United States. 

We come now to consider the " Western " system, which 
is, instead, essentially an examination of the school. This is 
commonly called the certification or accrediting of schools. 
Stated broadly, according to this method the college, having 
in some way satisfied itself as to the quaHty of the work done 
in the school, agrees to accept, in lieu of examinations, a state- 
ment from the school to the effect that the applicant has done 
the required work satisfactorily and is quahfied to do college 
work. ' 

The theoretic justification of each system, in so far as it 
relates to fitness for admission to college, is as follows : {a) The 
college is the best judge of what constitutes fitness to enter 
college, and examination is the best test of fitness. (&) The 



164 Principles of Secondary Education 

teacher, knowing both the boy and his work and the college 
requirements as well, is the best judge. 

The merits of these two positions cannot be discussed here, 
for, in its origin at least, the accrediting system had a deeper 
justification. It came naturally with the recognition of the 
solidarity of a state educational system wherein all members 
have a unity of purpose and of which the state university is 
the natural head. While this condition was characteristic 
of the West generally, it reached its earliest practical recog- 
nition in Michigan. In the annual catalogue of the Uni- 
versity of Michigan for 1870-187 1 appeared a '' Special Notice 
to Preparatory Schools," whereby the faculty agreed that, 
under certain conditions, the holder of a diploma of graduation 
from a school might be admitted to the University without 
examination. 

Chief among the conditions, as modified by the experience 
of a few years, were in substance the following : 

(i) The work of the school must be inspected by a com- 
mittee of the university faculty and favorably reported; 

(2) Accrediting was granted for but one year at a time ; 

(3) Applicant must present to the university diploma of 
graduation from the school; (4) The school must apply to 
the university yearly for the accrediting; (5) Only pubhc 
high schools within the state were accredited. 

Here we find those principles clearly recognized which are 
characteristic of the Western plan and in contrast with the 
Eastern : {a) that there is an organic relationship between 
the different parts of the state educational system ; {b) that 
examination should be not of the candidate but of the school ; 
(c) that the teacher is the best judge of what his pupil is, of 
what he knows, and of what he can, and probably will, do in 
college. 

The theoretic reasonableness and the practical efficiency of 
the Michigan plan, as it soon came to be called, appealed to 
the West, which, being less hampered than the East by edu- 



High School Systems of the United States 165 

cational tradition, was freer to try out educational innova- 
tions. So, as the states developed, the essential features of 
the accrediting system, with individual state modifications, 
were adopted by practically every state west of the Alleghanies. 
While in a few cases the state department of education imder- 
took the accrediting of schools, as a rule that function was as- 
sumed by the state university, as in Michigan. 

In those states where the original plan was most fully and 
typically carried out, e.g. in Michigan and in Cahfomia, the 
examination of the schools, which was the most essential 
feature of the plan, was one of subject in the high school 
and by corresponding departments of the university. Repre- 
sentatives — preferably heads — of the various university 
departments of instruction visited and inspected yearly the 
corresponding subjects of instruction in the schools. Thus a 
school might be accredited in some subjects and not in others. 

So long as the schools of a state were few and small, with 
narrow curricula, this plan was usually effectively carried 
out. But in time difficulties arose. The first was of ad- 
ministration from the university side. With the enormous 
growth of the high schools of the past two decades in numbers, 
size, and complexity of curricula, this feature of the plan 
grew more and more unwieldy, difficult of execution, and 
finally impracticable. Not enough experienced men could 
be spared from the various university departments to do the 
work; so j^ounger men, often unacquainted with secondary 
school work, were sent ; later, even these could not be spared 
in sufficient numbers to cover the field. Finally the cost, 
which was borne by the university, became well-nigh pro- 
hibitive. In 1905 one state university was expending in the 
work over $10,000 per year and even then was not able to 
cover the field adequately. 

The second arose in the attitude of the schools ; for the 
schools, which at first had warmly welcomed the accrediting 
system and had been tremendously benefited by imiversity 



1 66 Principles of Secondary Education 

cooperation, came in time to feel the hand of the university 
heavy upon them and to chafe under it. And they had 
reason. For with the changed conditions sketched above, 
injustice was frequently — however unintentionally — done 
to teacher, pupil, and school. Moreover, with the rapid ex- 
pansion of the high schools, the conviction gained ground 
that the larger purpose was to fit the many for life rather 
than the few for college ; that the secondary school should 
be considered as a whole as an institution with its own true 
ends, rather than as a loose aggregation of unrelated subjects 
of instruction leading to college admission. So there were 
sent to the schools fewer departmental specialists and these 
less frequently ; the minute yearly inspection of each subject 
was given up, and the university came gradually to recognize 
the school as an autonomy, to be judged rightly only as a 
whole. 

The next step was a logical one. Instead of the numerous 
departmental specialists of former years, the university ap- 
pointed one general examiner, who usually became a member 
of the university department of education. Generally he 
was to spend one part of the school year in university instruc- 
tion and the other in visiting the schools. Officially he was 
expected to view the school as a whole, to note in how far it 
measured up to recognized standards of modern secondary 
school efficiency. Upon his report, as a rule, the school was 
accredited, if at all, as a whole and not by individual subjects 
as heretofore. Such an accredited school was permitted to 
enter its graduates at the university without examination on 
the recommendation of the principal and a statement that 
the appHcant had satisfactorily completed the entrance re- 
quirements. 

As conducive to more intelligent cooperation between the 
schools and the universities, some of the latter kept a detailed 
scholarship record of the work done in the university by the 
freshmen entering from each school. These records were 



High School Systems of the United States 167 

sent to the principals of the corresponding schools at the close 
of the first semester, and were also used as additional data 
for determining the right of the school to be accredited the 
following year. 

So far we have sketched, by sample, the development of 
the accrediting system of the West. In some states, especially 
in the far West, the standards set by the state university 
have been generally accepted by the private colleges of the 
state ; but in the states of the Middle West this has not been 
so generally true. In many of these states there are important 
private colleges and imiversities, and the educational leader- 
ship of the state universities has not been so unquestioned. 
Under these circumstances, each of the more important in- 
stitutions has sought to maintain its own admission require- 
ments and its own accrediting system. This has resulted 
in vast waste through duplication of effort on the part of 
the colleges, and much needless annoyance on the part of 
the schools. In such cases we find, though to a less degree, 
an educational atomism akin to that of the East. 

To render the accrediting system more widely effective 
there was need of an organization which would act as a clear- 
ing house, and do for many states and for all colleges within 
those states what many of the individual states were already 
doing effectively for their own territory. 

An organization with such an end in view came into existence 
in 1 90 1 when the North Central Association of Colleges and 
Secondary Schools formed a '' Commission of Accredited 
Schools." Its chief purposes were : (i) to define and 
describe " unit " high school courses of study in the different 
subjects; (2) to serve as a standing committee on uniform 
college admission requirements; (3) to secure uniformity in 
the standards and methods, and economy of labor and expense 
in the work of high school inspection ; (4) to prepare and 
publish a list of accredited schools. 

In its first report, issued in 1902, the General Commission 



1 68 Principles of Secondary Education 

made certain recommendations. The important ones, as 
slightly modified later, stand now as follows: (i) "A unit 
course of study in a secondary school is defined as a course 
covering an academic year that shall include in the aggregate 
not less than the equivalent of one hundred and twenty 
sixty-minute hours of classroom work, two hours of manual 
training or laboratory work being equivalent to an hour of 
classroom work." (2) High school graduation and college 
admission would include fifteen units so defined. (3) All 
high school curricula and all requirements for college en- 
trance should include three units of English and two units of 
mathematics. 

The subcommittee on high school inspection recommended 
the following criteria by which accrediting should be deter- 
mined, the length of the accrediting term being one year : 
(i) The minimum scholastic attainments of all high school 
teachers shall be the equivalent of graduation from a college 
belonging to the North Central Association, including special 
training in the subjects they teach. (2) No teacher shall 
have more than five daily recitations of forty-five minutes 
each. (3) The school shall have adequate laboratory and 
library facihties for handling properly the subjects taught. 
(4) The location, construction, and sanitary arrangements 
of the buildings " shall be such as to secure hygienic condi- 
tions for both pupils and teachers." (5) Schools must rank 
well in general efficiency of instruction, and in intellectual and 
moral tone. (6) A school must have at least four teachers of 
academic subjects ; the average number of pupils per teacher 
must not be above thirty. 

Visitation and examination of the schools was to be done 
by a Board of Inspectors. From five, at first, the number 
of inspectors had grown in 191 2 to twenty-one. Seven of 
these are the regular official inspectors, each representing 
the department of education of his state ; fourteen are rep- 
resentatives of the universities and colleges belonging to the 



High School Systems of the United States 169 

North Central Association. In one or other form fourteen 
states are represented. 

The Board intended from the first that its accredited 
schools should constitute an honor Hst, and went to work very 
conservatively. The first list of accredited schools was pub- 
lished in 1904, and contained the names of 157 schools rep- 
resenting ten states; on the list of 19 12 there were 837 
schools representing eighteen states. 

The work of the Board has been extremely valuable. It 
has proved to be, within its field, the greatest administrative 
agency yet devised ; it is coordinating the different schools 
and colleges throughout a wide area ; it is reducing to a 
minimum of expenditure, with a maximum of efficiency, the 
labor and cost involved in the former methods ; it is steadily 
fostering and enhancing the growth of cordial relations be- 
tween schools and colleges. 

In 191 1, the Southern Commission on Accredited Schools 
was formed by the Association of Colleges and Secondary 
Schools of the Southern States. 

The commission was charged with preparing a " Southern 
List of Accredited Schools for the use of the colleges of the 
South and of other sections, and furthermore, to stimulate 
and aid the high schools to reach higher standards of scholar- 
ship and better conditions for teachers and pupils. . . . The 
Southern list will be an honor list of schools for the entire 
section." 

This commission was largely influenced as to formation 
and purposes by the North Central Association, so that 
" practically the same standards and units will be recognized 
by twenty-nine states, from Montana to Florida, and from 
Michigan to Texas." 

It seems probable that the operations of the Board, either 
directly or by imitation, will ultimately embrace the whole 
territory of the Union, except possibly the North Atlantic 
states. 



lyo Pri7iciples of Secondary Education 

Of Western origin, the accrediting system, radically modified 
to be sure, found its way in the seventies into New England 
and the East, where it was ultimately adopted, at least in 
part, by all colleges except a few of the largest. 

The two most fundamental modifications of the Western 
plan of accrediting as it developed in the East were : (i) Ap- 
pHcants were admitted to college on certificate, i.e. a state- 
ment made by a principal or a teacher. Graduation from 
and recommendation by a standardized secondary school was 
not required. (2) Schools were not inspected; information 
concerning them was obtained, if at all, mainly by corre- 
spondence. 

By these two modifications were abrogated the most valu- 
able characteristics of the original accrediting system. Conse- 
quently, while in the West, with its closer educational or- 
ganization, the system grew constantly in favor, in the East, 
where educational individualism was more prevalent, it sank, 
under the pressure of college competition, to a very low degree 
of efficiency. 

The very evils of the situation, however, together with a 
recognition of the evident advantages of accrediting when 
properly managed, led to a wide-reaching reform. This re- 
form took shape in 1902, when there was organized in Boston, 
by delegates from certain colleges, the New England College 
Entrance Certificate Board. The organization was formed 
" for the purpose of receiving, examining, and acting upon 
all applications of schools that should ask for the privilege of 
certification." 

The operations of the Board are confined to schools within 
New England. Its means of securing information concerning 
schools are mainly : {a) written information furnished by the 
school; {h) the scholarship records made in the colleges by 
" certified " representatives of the schools. 

It should be noted that in marked contrast with the 
constitution of the Western accrediting commission this is 



High School Systems of the United States 171 

wholly a college organization ; the schools have no repre- 
sentation on the Board and no voice in determining its policy. 
Moreover, there is no provision for visiting the schools by 
the college men, with the consequent better mutual under- 
standing, which has proved so valuable a feature of the West- 
ern plan. There seems to be no attempt to cooperate with 
the schools with a view to helping to solve the ever more 
pressing problems of secondary education. The Board re- 
gards the schools only as factories for turning out college 
student material. Thus : " The ability of pupils to pursue 
their college work satisfactorily is the only evidence that the 
Board can consider sufficient to warrant approval of the 
school." 

Among the most important rules of the Board governing 
the " certification " of schools are : {a) Schools must apply 
, in writing and furnish detailed information upon blanks fur- 
nished by the Board concerning courses of study, teachers, and 
equipment. (5) A school must be able (i) to prepare for at 
least one college of the Association ; (2) to show " by the 
record of its students already admitted to college [by ex- 
amination] its ability to give thorough preparation for college." 
(c) Schools are approved for three years after one trial year. 

Within its field and purpose, — to confine the issuance of 
certificates to worthy students and by responsible schools, 
and to establish the merits of the accrediting method of ad- 
mitting to college, — the Board has been markedly successful. 
For when the Board was organized, there were five hun- 
dred and thirty-four New England schools on the approved 
lists of one or more of the ten colleges which had been receiv- 
ing students by certificate ; but the first year of the Board's 
operations it approved only one hundred and seven schools; 
and nine years later (19 11), the approved list of schools num- 
bered but three hundred and fifty-six. As to scholarship, in 
all the more recent reports of the Board are given extensive 
detailed comparisons of the relative standings of those students 



172 Principles of Secondary Education 

who entered by the Board's certificate plan and those who 
entered by examination. 

A few quotations from the Board's annual reports in order 
of pubHcation will give the gist of the conclusions : " It ap- 
pears from the tables that the per cent of failures among 
those who enter on certificate is much lower than among 
those who enter on examination." (Sixth annual report.) 
" The per cent of failures among those who enter on cer- 
tificate continues much lower than among those who enter 
on examination." (Seventh annual report.) " From this it 
appears that the number of failures among those entering by 
examination is relatively half as many again as among those 
entering on certificate. This difference between the two 
classes persists from whatever point of view we regard the 
statistics." (Ninth annual report.) 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What factors entered into the establishment and development of 
the high school system in your own state ? 

2. What relation exists or should exist between the high school and 
the elementary school in your own state ? 

3. Do better relations exist in other states ? 

4. What variations exist between the high schools of your state and 
of other states ? 

5. To what extent are the high schools of your state college pre- 
paratory schools and to what extent are they influenced or dominated 
by the colleges ? 

6. To what extent, as shown by statistical investigation and by 
curricula, are they finishing schools ? 

7. To what extent have they developed vocational characteristics ? 

8. What is the form of control exercised over the high schools? 
Can improvements be suggested ? 

9. To what extent does your own state have a rural high school 
system ? What are its characteristic features and the form of control ? 
How may these rural high schools be improved ? How do the curricula 
differ from the schools of towns and cities ? 

10. How do the rural high schools of your statecompare with those 
of other states ? 



High School Systems of the United States 173 

11. Through what stages of financial support have the high schools 
of your state passed ? 

12. What is the basis of apportionment of funds to high schools in 
your state ? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this system ? 

13. What system of inspection and accrediting of schools exists in 
your state ? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this system 
as actually demonstrated ? 

14. What are the advantages and disadvantages from the point of 
view of the high school of the various methods of college entrance ? 

15. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a state system 
of inspection of high schools ? 

REFERENCES 

Bolton, F. E. Special State Aid to High Schools. Eiuc. Rev., Vol. 

XXXI, pp. 141-166. 
Brown, E. E. The Making of our Middle Schools. New York, 1903. 
Brown, J. F. The American High School. New York, 1909. 
CuBBERLEY, E. P. School Funds and their Apportionment, Ch. XIV. 

New York, 1905. 
Davenport, E. Education for Efficiency. Boston, 1909. 
England, Board of Education. Special Reports on Educational Subjects, 

Vol. XL Education in the United States of America. London, 1902. 
HoLLiSTER, H. A. High School Administration. Boston, 1909. 
Inglis, a. J. Rise of the High School in Massachusetts. New York, 

1911. 
Johnston, C. H. High School Education. New York, 191 2. 

The Modern High School, its Administration and Extension. New 

York, 1914. 
Proceedings of the Association of College and Preparatory Schools of 

the Middle States and Maryland. 
Report of the Committee on Secondary School Studies, known as the 

Report of the Committee of Ten. (Appointed by the N. E. A. in July, 

1892.) 
Snyder, E. R. The Legal Status of Rural High Schools. New York, 

1909. 
See also Educational Review and School Review. 



CHAPTER V 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HIGH SCHOOL 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE HIGH SCHOOL 
DETERMINES ITS EFFICIENCY. — The administration 
of a high school is the enacting clause for the whole in- 
stitution. It is the executive department that must make 
effective the legislation embodied in the curriculum. It is 
the clearing house that must adjust the relations of the 
various teachers and departments to each other and to 
the school as a whole. It is the personal equation 
between pupils and teachers and between school and 
home. It is the prime minister that must interpret popular 
needs to the people's legislators. Without efhcient adminis- 
tration a million-dollar school plant may become the splendid 
mausoleum of the hopes and opportunities of youth and of 
the self-devotion of a faculty. With efficient administration 
a tumble-down brickery may become a temple of culture, 
service, and democracy. 

The Principal is the Chief Factor in the Administration. — 
The principal must of course always be the chief administrative 
officer of a school. Good administration, however, means 
that he should not be a czar. Granted, for sake of argument, 
that he is the wisest and most capable person in the organiza- 
tion, he certainly is not wiser and more capable than himself 
plus his faculty, by axiom. The genius of American institu- 
tions is democratic, and if the American high school is to 
develop in harmony with this genius it must embody the es- 
sential elements of democracy. 

174 



The Organizatio7i of the High School 175 

Full Support of the Faculty Necessary for the Best Results. 

— In small schools the teachers should all be advisers of the 
principal. Important measures should command that sup- 
port from the entire faculty that can come only from free 
discussion and concurrent decision. In large schools that 
have departmental organization the heads of departments 
should form a cabinet that will give administrative measures 
the representative support and advice of the faculty. The 
department faculties will in turn discuss departmental matters 
as well as general administrative policies so that the demo- 
cratic principle may be maintained throughout. 

Neither faculty, cabinet, nor department should, however, 
degenerate into a mere debating or disputing society. The 
relation of the official head to any of these units must be that 
of any similar responsible officer in any executive body. He 
may veto a measure generally approved or he may order a 
course of action generally disapproved; but he will do neither 
of these things without the most deliberate consideration 
and the most weighty reasons. The principal who has the 
personality, judgment, and training demanded by his position 
will very seldom find it necessary to differ radically from the 
combined opinion of his advisers. 

THE PROBLEM OF ADMINISTRATION. — Given, then, 
a more or less adequate high school building and equipment, the 
high school pupils of a community, a more or less adequate 
faculty; the first problem of the high school administrator 
is to furnish the necessary systematization of details to en- 
able the teachers and pupils to work together to the best 
possible advantage. 

The Course of Study. — Perhaps the first, as well as the most 
important, question to be considered is, what subjects shall be 
taught ? The treatment of this topic in other chapters makes 
its discussion here unnecessary, yet the problem is so funda- 
mental that certain aspects of it must necessarily creep into 
any consideration of the high school. On no other subject 



176 Principles of Secondary Education 

are school men more likely to be dogmatic, and on none is 
there so great need of a careful, scientific study of facts as a 
basis for procedure. In determining the course of study for 
any given group of students, the needs of the community, 
the abilities and the social and industrial destinies of the pupils, 
and the limitations imposed by the financial means at the 
disposal of the school should be the deciding factors rather 
than traditions or a priori theories as to what constitutes 
" an education." 

The school administrator of to-day must remember that 
the problem of secondary education has grown infinitely more 
complicated than it was when it was supposedly settled with 
such amazing finality by the Committee of Ten. The 
students outnumber those of twenty years ago by about four 
to one. Congestion of population in the cities has brought 
with it social problems undreamed of two decades ago. The 
perfection of machinery has revolutionized industry within 
that time. Organized society as represented by municipality, . 
state, and nation has been compelled to assert the rights of 
the social whole in an infinite variety of relations at that time 
only dimly apprehended. Then we believed that our natural 
resources were inexhaustible ; to-day we know that the rights 
of succeeding generations demand wise conservation. Then 
we ignored political corruption, especially in our cities ; now 
we recognize in the conspiracies of machine politics and unscru- 
pulous business a challenge against the life of our democracy. 
We have come to see that every economic question is funda- 
mentally a moral and spiritual question. So child labor, a 
living wage, safe and sanitary working conditions, public 
health, infant mortality, the liquor problem, are all recog- 
nized as the business of every good citizen. 

The public school is the one completely socialized agency 
for the improvement of society. The public high school is, 
at present, the most advanced part of this institution. From 
its product will come the vast majority of to-morrow's leaders. 



The Organization of the High School 177 

Obviously those charged with its administration must not 
content themselves with pharisaical platitudes about culture 
and discipline in place of open-minded response to obvious 
public needs. The awakened social consciousness of the 
school administrator will furnish guidance in almost every 
problem that arises in his day's work. It will make him 
question all the traditions of his craft, and if his attitude of 
mind is backed by a powerful personality, such a principal 
will completely transform the spirit of any high school whose 
ideal has been the increase of the sum total of knowledge of 
Latin and algebra. 

THE DAILY ROSTER FOR PROMOTION BY SUB- 
JECT. — After the course of study has been determined, the 
next problem is the making of the daily roster. Under the sys- 
tem of promotion by grades this was a comparatively simple 
task. Pupils were platooned into approximately equal groups 
and moved in mass. Unfortunately this procedure made it nec- 
essary for a pupil failing in one or two subjects to repeat all 
others, no matter how well they had been mastered, or else to 
go ahead with his group when certain subjects had been so 
poorly learned as to make further progress impossible. A third 
evil, fully as great, although less apparent, was that it made 
consideration of the individual needs of pupils practically 
impossible. Even in the higher grammar grades this system 
is now being abandoned in many progressive schools, and in 
high schools it is tolerated in only a few communities. 

Making the roster for promotion by subjects is the most 
complicated task in the organization of a high school. Strange 
as it may seem, the real difficulties become fewer, the larger 
the school. This is true because in a larger school there 
will be two or more classes in nearly every subject. There- 
fore, the pupil who has in his roster a conflict with one period 
of a certain subject will be able to recite another period. The 
longer the school day, the fewer will be the number of con- 
flicts, because each pupil will have more vacant periods. It 



178 Principles of Secondary Education 

is only because of their longer school day that small schools 
can make successful rosters for promotion by subjects. 

Data Necessary as a Working Basis. — The first step in 
making a roster is to determine the number of pupils likely 
to require each subject to be offered. This can be ascertained 
during the latter part of the term from some such card as the 
one shown opposite. If the reports were sent out monthly, of 
course additional columns like those designated " Marks " 
would be required. After the next to the last report of the 
term it is possible in the majority of cases to estimate with 
a fair degree of accuracy the prospects of passing or failure 
for each pupil in every subject. The experience of the school 
as to percentage of passing in each subject furnishes a valuable 
check on this estimate. From the estimate of numbers based 
on a count of " Subjects next term," with due allowances for 
failures, the number of classes in each subject can be deter- 
mined. 



The figure opposite shows the organization card of the William Penn high 
school, Philadelphia. Early in the term the heading, and the data under " Studies 
This Term" are filled out by the pupils, "Hrs." shows the number of recitations 
per week, and the check mark in column " R " shows what the pupil is repeating, 
D Geometry, for example, on this card. At report time teachers put in marks 
and their own initials. The column "Studies Next Term" is filled in by the 
counts before the final mark is entered. They are required to foUow the course 
of study in choice of studies for "next term" unless a change is authorized by 
the principal. The "Record Teacher" is responsible for seeing that the course 
of study is followed, that subjects failed are included in next term's list, that 
counts are entered in the first column at the left, and that the pupil is correctly 
graded for the coming term. The "Record Teacher's " name at the upper right- 
hand corner indicates that she has passed the card as correct in aU details. 
The daily roster for next term is then entered by the organization committee. 
The number above the faint line in each case indicates the room in which the 
class is held. "400" is the study hall, and the letter and figure in the space 
below indicate the pupil's seat for the period. This item is not entered until 
the beginning of "next term," when a committee of the Student's Association 
seats the pupils in strictly alphabetical order. The first day of "next term" 
the pupil makes a copy of her roster from the bottom of this card and the organ- 
ization card is returned to the office. This is the card of an irregular pupil 
who had deferred Latin for one term so as to make up geometry. 



The Orga7iization of the High School 1 79 

" Record Teacher," (L.€. fialt. 

Grade (P. Bk. 2/. Sa,tl 19 If-. 

... Telephone Entered 191 



Surname First 



^at. S^h&fd. Course. College or Noi=«Tar? cj'iv-avt/nyvave. C'ts 60. 





Class 


Studies tt„^ t? ? i Tr's 
This Term "^^- : ^- ! Initials 


Marks 


Class 


Studies 
Next Term 


Hrs. 


i 


^ 


Snatv^'h 


^ 




a. ISM. 


^ 


IS 


■ B 


&nattQyk 


^ 


2h 


^ 


^tMTb&tvU 


6 


v/ 


Cl.S'.L. 


(g 


t 


€ 


^aaweXAA^ 


6 


2'- 


€ 


^e■^mv(X^^ 


6 




€.R.(^. 


€ 


fd 


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Counts earned this term "> si. Grade next term ? ^ ■\- si- 





MONDAY 


TUESDAY 


WEDNESDAY 


THURSDAY 


FRIDAY 


\ 


322 


322 


322 


322 


302 




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302 




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/05 


/06 




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(^ ^e.a'i'yv. 


^ ^&o']'yL. 


^ ^£.ayn.. 


^ '^ea')'yu. 


4 


100 


^00 


^00 


^00 


^00 




Id Tlhii-U 


L-5 


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William Penn High School, Philadelphia. 



i8o Principles of Secondary Education 

Non-conflicting Term Units are Necessary. — Then some 
system of non-conflicting periods must be provided.^ The 
simplest is to make the division by daily periods straight 
through the week as shown on the bottom of the foregoing 
organization card. 

Regular and Irregular Students. — Next the subjects can 
be placed on the roster. The first consideration, of course, is 
to arrange so that a pupil taking the regular work of any 
course shall be able to make his roster. Then provision must 
be made for a pupil faihng in one or in two subjects to repeat 
the subjects failed. Usually it is comparatively easy to tell 
where the failures are most likely to occur. For example, 
in the first term the majority of failures will be in foreign 
language and Algebra. Therefore, the roster should provide 
amply for pupils who have failed in one of these subjects or 
in both to go ahead with the subjects they have passed. 

Double Periods. — The hete noir of the roster maker is 
the double period. Science teachers always insist that they 
cannot do their work without double periods for the labora- 
tory. It is obvious also that cooking cannot be successfully 
taught in a forty-five minute period. In many other subjects, 
including all forms of manual training and shop work, double 
periods at least a part of the time can be successfully used. 
Some of the difficulties with double periods can be overcome 
by combining two subjects in the same course so that their 
time fits together. For example, if physics recites the first 
period the first four days of the week and doubles to cover 
the first and second Monday, any subject of the same term 
which recites four times a week can be placed in the second 
period for the last four days, or such a combination can be 
made as is shown on the bottom of the organization card 
(page 179). When there are many subjects requiring double 

^ In an article, "Making a High School Program," in the School Review, 
September, 1909, Myron M. Richardson describes a system of rotating the 
daily periods. 



The Organization of the High School i8i 

periods there should be a secondary non-conflicting arrange- 
ment. For example, the first and second, the third and fourth, 
and the fifth and sixth periods should be grouped together, 
and no combination should be permitted across the dividing 
lines, such as running a class from the second into the third, 
or from the fourth into the fifth, period. 





Monday 


Tuesday 


Wednesday 


Thursday 


[Friday 


I 


I 


I 


I 


I 


4 


2 


I 


I 


I 


I 


4 


3 


4 


2 


2 


2 


2 


4 


4 


2 


2 


2 


2 


5 


3 


3 


4 


3 


3 


6 


3 


3 


4 


3 


3 


7 




4 




4 





An ingenious combination of four non-conflicting double- 
period groups is used in some schools as indicated in the table 
above. The ordinary pupil will have at least two or three 
subjects that do not require double periods. If the curriculum 
is based on a four-period-per-week unit, at least two of these 
can be placed in one of the blocks, for example in the one 
marked i. Then the double-period subjects can be arranged 
in the three remaining blocks with less likelihood of conflict. 
This device calls for a seven-period day. It also provides 
three periods per week, namely, the seventh on Monday, 
Wednesday, and Friday, when there are no classes. Of course 
a rearrangement of the periods would place these general 
periods wherever in the week they were desired. The value 
of such periods will be immediately evident to any adminis- 
trator. It will be possible at that time for any teacher to 



1 82 Principles of Secondary Education 

meet any pupil or any group of pupils in the school. Lectures 
and other outside attractions can be brought in at that time 
without disturbing the regular work. High school dramatics, 
student government activities, and any other desirable feature 
involving the whole or a part of the student body can be 
placed in those periods. 

Advantages of a Regular Roster Maker. — The variety 
of schemes of roster making by different schools is almost 
infinite, but the fundamentals enumerated above are prac- 
tically uniform. In a small school it becomes necessary to 
make a tabulated list of all pupils, particularly of those in 
the higher classes, and to plan the roster so as to provide for 
individual exigencies. Indeed the problem presents infinite 
varieties of form in different schools. Fortunately there are 
many ways around difficulties that to the uninitiated would 
seem unsurmountable. These can, however, be learned only 
by experience. The making of the roster presents a difficult 
problem in permutations, but it is fundamental. In the 
largest schools the principal may delegate it to a teacher who 
has particular aptness for such tasks, making due allowance 
in his or her teaching assignments. This is probably the best 
way out of the difficulty, as the regular roster maker soon 
acquires great skill in manipulating the details. After a 
few reorganizations he will develop a roster that, with com- 
paratively slight changes, will remain permanent from term 
to term. However it may ultimately be managed, intimate 
acquaintance with this roster problem is an absolute essential 
in the equipment of a high school administrator. 

ASSIGNMENT OF WORK TO TEACHERS. — Along with 
the arrangement of the various classes on the roster must go of 
course the assignment of work to teachers. The number of 
periods and the number of different subjects allotted to each 
teacher varies widely. In the smaller schools the require- 
ment is so high, both in teaching hours and in variety of work, 
that satisfactory work is impossible. The report on Educa- 



The Organization of the High School 183 

tion in Vermont, issued by the Carnegie Foundation, discusses 
a situation that is more or less common throughout the country. 
The Number of Periods required a Week from each 
Teacher. — "A table in Part III ^ gives the average number 
of class recitations per week taught by the full-time teachers 
in each school. The limits within which a teacher may be 
expected to do a high grade of work naturally vary with the 
character of the subjects taught, the amount of special 
preparation necessary, the quantity of written work to be 
reviewed and corrected, and the number of individual prob- 
lems, the amount of bookkeeping, and the strain of class at- 
tention which the size of the class involves. It is generally 
agreed, however, that, with a normal class membership of 
20 to 25, no teacher can hope to give successful secondary 
instruction with a program of more than 25 class periods per 
week, and 20 is much better. For teachers of English under 
present methods even this latter number should be reduced. 
Beyond 25 periods, quahty deteriorates rapidly and gives 
place to the merest hack work, however well meant. It is 
assumed, furthermore, in setting up this maximum, that a 
teacher is teaching one or two groups of subjects for which 
he has had special preparation. Three classes of Latin and 
two of German constitute a program preferable in all respects 
to five classes of Latin; but good work cannot be done with 
a program made up of senior Latin, junior physics, second- 
year history, first-year English, and algebra. It is only 
necessary to glance at the table mentioned to see how Ver- 
mont high school requirements compare with this standard; 
60 of the 77 schools are burdening their teachers with an 
amount and variety of work which makes excellence impos- 
sible. Unfortunately, a low quality of teaching is not readily 
detected by the lay mind, and under such conditions formalism, 
cant, and ignorance are likely to overcome the best intentions." 

1 This table shows that teachers in Vermont high schools teach from 28 to 
48 periods per week. 



184 Principles of Secondary Education 

Special Duties. — It will be found advisable in a large 
school to make allowances on the teaching roster for various 
special duties as well as for peculiar conditions in the work of 
certain subjects. The necessity of thorough correction of 
themes and personal conferences with pupils in English is 
generally coming to be recognized as sufficient reason for a 
somewhat lower requirement in teaching hours in this subject. 
On the other hand, subjects like sewing, cooking, manual 
training, and drawing, which call for less outside preparation, 
may fairly permit a somewhat larger requirement in actual 
teaching hours. In a large school certain administrative 
duties must be delegated to teachers if the principal is to be 
free to use his time to the best advantage in furthering the 
growth of his school along the broader lines. A city school, 
for example, needs a vocational bureau that will study the 
opportunities of employment and make known to pupils 
something of their scope. This bureau should also have 
charge of the placement of graduates and of the part-time 
placement of pupils who would be compelled to leave school 
if some means of earning money could not be secured. The 
supervision of student activities is another function that re- 
quires much special attention. Teachers who assume such 
important duties as this should not be required to carry full 
teaching rosters. 

THE PRINCIPAL'S RELATION TO THE VARIOUS AC- 
TIVITIES OF THE SCHOOL. — The principal must be kept 
in touch with all of these activities of his school by frequent 
conferences with the teachers in charge of them. He should 
show his vital interest by visits to the various groups of 
students. He should have a clear and definite idea of the 
place of every activity in the life of the school, and he should 
of course exercise the greatest care in selecting faculty spon- 
sors. No greater mistake can be made, however, than for 
him to think that he is the only person in the school capable 
of developing a line of action. The oft-quoted dictum of 



The Organization of the High School 185 

Miles Standish must be radically amended by any manager 
of a large and complicated organization whether of school 
or of business. It should be revised so as to read, — "If 
you would have a thing well done, select the right person to 
do it, keep your hands off, and require results." This is the 
principle of functional management that has played so large 
a part in the scientific management successes of Frederick 
W. Taylor and his disciples. It is very generally applied in 
business, but it is often ignored in school management. The 
principal who feels it necessary to answer minute questions 
and follow up all the petty details of a large school will find it 
absolutely impossible to extend his vision beyond the pin- 
points to which he is devoting his energy. Moreover, he 
will neither utilize to the best advantage the various abilities 
of his teachers nor develop their individuality and initiative. 
In this way his school will be the loser, for he must be a rare 
leader who can do each of the various kinds of task involved 
in the management of a great school better than any one of 
the dozen or hundred people in his faculty. 

The attitude of mind of the principal on this particular 
point is much more vital than might be seen at first. A 
teacher to whom a task is given only with minute directions 
for every detail naturally refuses to assume full responsibility 
for results. If the principal habitually withholds or refuses 
freedom to members of his faculty to work out in their own 
way the problems he assigns to them, they soon come to look 
upon the administration as none of their affair, and confine 
their efforts as nearly as possible inside the walls of their 
classrooms. Unless suggestions and criticisms are wel- 
comed, the breach between administration and instruction 
is widened. Perhaps worst of all, the spirit of the school 
develops into a wooden response to authority without that 
desire for cooperation for the general good that is essential 
to the largest service of the institution that is forming the 
subconscious basis of the citizenship of to-morrow. 



1 86 Principles of Secondary Education 

RELATION BETWEEN THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL 
AND THE HIGH SCHOOL. — Some of the most vexatious 
problems in high school administration are found in the rela- 
tions of the school with the educational institutions below and 
above it. The difficulty of articulation with the college has 
been the subject of a long and bitter controversy. The need 
of better articulation with the elementary school is now claim- 
ing serious study. In the small towns where all of the educa- 
tional facilities are supervised by one principal this adjust- 
ment offers little difficulty. Generally speaking, it becomes 
more and more of a problem the larger the city. In many 
cities the authority of the superintendent of schools over the 
high schools is vague and uncertain, and the direct coopera- 
tion between the grammar and high schools almost nil. The 
entire reorganization of the twelve years of the public school 
into a six-year elementary school and either a six-year high 
school or a junior and a senior high school of three years each 
is doubtless the best solution of the problem of articulation 
between the elementary and the secondary school. The 
tendency towards this change seems to be rapid, but its pros- 
pect should not keep other efforts at coordination from being 
made. 

Cooperation between the High School Principal and the 
Grammar School Principal. — The most obvious point of 
contact is between the high school and the grammar school 
principal. A mutual understanding here will be of great 
advantage to the pupils. The grammar school principal 
should visit the high school, go into the classes where his 
former pupils are working, learn the meaning of the high 
school opportunities available for his pupils, and give much 
personal attention to the selection of courses by individuals 
before they enter. It is needless to say that his advice and 
counsel should be welcomed by the high school principal. 
Individual peculiarities that seem inexplicable are often ex- 
plained by the closer personal knowledge of the workers in 



The Organization of the High School 187 

the lower school. Not infrequently the grammar school 
principal can throw some most illuminating sidelights on the 
high school. His boys and girls are sure to go back to him, 
particularly during their first term, with interesting comments 
on things " at high." Weaknesses immediately evident to 
their keen eyes are analyzed with all the intolerance of youth, 
and usually with surprising accuracy. The high school 
principal whose mind is open to possibilities of improvement 
in his own school will cordially welcome the suggestions and 
criticisms that he can never hear save through his confrere 
in the lower school. 

Visits and Reports between the Schools. — Nor should 
the grammar school principal do all of the visiting. The 
high school principal who has never visited the grammar 
schools of his district will be surprised at the good results of 
systematic visits to those who are preparing his raw material. 
He will be much less likely to blame the lower school for the 
obvious shortcomings of its product after he has visited its 
classes and come into personal contact with its problems. 
The pupils who are to go to the high school will feel that 
they have a friend in their new principal if he has visited 
them in their earlier habitat. This sense of familiarity will 
impart a confidence that can be developed only after much 
longer contact within the high school itself. It is perhaps 
one of the surest ways to guard against the terrific loss during 
the first term of high school. If the principal has the con- 
fidence of the pupils, which he can get better from even a 
slight previous acquaintance, he can more effectually guard 
them against the danger of losing step with the procession 
during their first month or two in the new and strange envi- 
ronment. 

The grammar school and the high school are owned and 
financed by the same public; they are working with the same 
boys and girls for the same ends. Each has a point of view 
different from the other; each has information that would 



1 88 Principles of Secondary Education 

be valuable to the other. Neither can do its best work until 
it is brought into the most harmonious cooperation with the 
other. Very naturally the grammar school expects the high 
school to take the initiative in establishing the most cordial 
relations. The high school should profit by its own trials in 
dealing with the few colleges that stand aloof in their dignified 
pedantry, and lead the way in establishing the most friendly 
cooperation with the grammar school. 

RELATION BETWEEN THE HIGH] SCHOOLS AND 
THE COLLEGES. — Relations between the high school 
and the college are happily becoming better. Much remains 
to be done before they are satisfactory, but the fine spirit of 
a few of the greatest institutions of higher education is making 
it possible for any pupil properly prepared to profit by college 
advantages. The evil within the high school of a curriculum 
based on college preparatory ideals is one that for many 
years to come will continue to Hmit its service. The petty 
demands of some institutions, particularly of the women's 
colleges of the East, will suggest to progressive principals 
the desirability of absent treatment. The whole question, 
however, is one in which the individual principal is so well- 
nigh helpless that he can have little hope for improvement in 
conditions save from the national commission that is en- 
deavoring to bring about more satisfactory relations.^ 

DISCIPLINE. Successful Discipline depends on Under- 
standing the Adolescent. — By no single criterion is the 
efficiency of school administration more frequently judged 
than by its discipline. Like the social worker the good dis- 
ciplinarian aims at the prevention rather than the cure of 
evil. The secret of preventing the necessity of discipline 
lies in building up the right spirit in the school. To do this 
in a high school demands a sympathetic understanding of 

1 The present writer has discussed the evils of college domination of the high 
schools in Democracy'' s High School, Educational Monograph Series, Houghton 
Mifflin & Co. 



The Organization of the High School 189 

the peculiarities of the adolescent. The appeals of previous 
years are no longer efficacious. Insistence upon orders as 
such only arouses antagonism. The adolescent wants to 
see the reason for the rules and directions given, he wishes to 
feel himself part of a cooperating group. He is profoundly 
sensitive to pubhc opinion. Hence he will usually join en- 
thusiastically in any scheme that asks his help in doing the 
things that are clearly for the benefit' of all concerned. If, 
on the other hand, the sentiment of the school favors disorder 
and Honizes the wrongdoer, the discipline becomes a pitched 
battle between the administration and the student body. 

Public Sentiment of the School the most Important 
Factor. — It makes little difference what system is used so 
long as it enhsts genuine cooperation on the part of the stu- 
dents. A so-called self-government scheme has no merits 
that will solve the problem of discipline if the spirit of the 
school is not right. Elaborate organizations of a legislative 
or judicial character are of questionable value. The one es- 
sential is the development of an enthusiastic loyalty to the 
best interests of the school that will express an unequivocal 
disapproval of anything harmful to its welfare. 

In securing this spirit the administration should never 
abrogate its rightful authority. It is justly held responsible 
to the community for satisfactory results, and it cannot se- 
cure these unless its decisions are final. Moreover, the loss 
of a wholesome respect for this authority on the part of the 
student body is absolutely fatal. The autocratic rule of a 
martinet is much more conducive to wholesome school work 
than the loose and vacillating government of a principal whose 
authority the pupils do not respect. Schemes of self-govern- 
ment in a weakHng's hands speedily become a huge joke, 
and the discipHne becomes a school of petty politics. 

Gradual Introduction of Student Participation in School 
Government. — Beginning, however, with a school well in 
hand, it is comparatively easy to introduce student partici- 



190 Principles of Secondary Education 

pation in the responsibilities of discipline. The habitual 
appeal, to the better instincts of a class when a teacher is 
absent is one easy approach that is famihar to all. The ap- 
pointment of a student who is a real leader to take charge of 
the assembly or to arrange certain details for graduation or 
for a school function, or an invitation to students by classes 
or groups to elect representatives to cooperate with the faculty 
for certain ends will prepare the way for the gradual assump- 
tion of certain functions of discipline by the students. The 
moment that some of these cooperative activities are success- 
ful is the one for further extension of the plan. " We have 
succeeded in this. Can we do the next thing ? " Such an 
appeal is sure of a hearty and genuine response. " Is it safe 
for the school to remove teachers from police duty in corridors, 
lunch room, assembly, and study hall ? " Any student body 
that is permeated by a wholesome community spirit will 
instantly assure the principal that it is. This does not mean 
that all of these responsibilities should be thrown upon the 
pupils at once, nor that the principal should start such a sys- 
tem and then leave it to run itself. A much better plan 
would be to take one problem, for example the lunch room, 
and see how well the students can manage it. " Men and 
women are accustomed to eat without police surveillance. 
Eating is a social function, where we meet our friends with- 
out restraint. Suppose we as a school assume full respon- 
sibility for the order in the lunch room and for the appearance 
of the room after we have finished." When one such respon- 
sibility is satisfactorily met, another should be assumed if 
possible. The spirit of cooperation, like a muscle, gains 
strength by exercise. The power of public opinion is much 
more compelling than any rules that can be made. If the 
sentiment of the school is overwhelmingly in favor of right 
action, there are few boys or girls who will stand against it. 

Nothing does more to focalize this wholesome public senti- 
ment than a sense of students and faculty working together 



The Organization of the High School 191 

for a common end. As the student government develops, a 
representative organization becomes necessary. Problems of 
evident importance to the school should be freely discussed 
by this body, and there should be ample opportunity for the 
representatives to carry back to their respective groups the 
ideas of the central body. The attitude of mind that sets a 
whole student body to discussing such a problem as " how- 
can we eliminate unnecessary tardiness," is in itself most 
wholesome and will go far toward securing the desired 
result. 

Social and Political Reasons for Student Participation in 
School Government. — An experience in a school where the 
cooperation of the students has been successfully enlisted il- 
lustrates the effectiveness of their assistance. The manners 
of the pupils at the daily assembly in this school had become 
so careless that the principal announced one Thursday 
morning that the school would meet in the hall at the close 
of school on the following Monday to practice for the assembly. 
The officers of the Student's Association took the matter up 
that day with each group in the study hall where pupils not 
in recitation were seated. On Friday and Monday mornings 
the assembly manners were perfect. The president of the 
Student's Association spoke for the student body Monday 
morning and requested the principal to postpone the rehearsal 
that he had announced. She requested that the students be 
given an opportunity to show that they could improve their 
behavior without any artificial means being employed to re- 
mind them of the proprieties of the assembly. Of course, the 
principal granted the request. 

In this school the study hall in which from 250 to 400 pupils 
are seated all the time is conducted entirely by the students. 
One teacher who has peculiar fitness for the task has full 
supervision of this and all other student activities. She is 
not required to do any teaching, but even at that a consider- 
able saving is effected, as the study hall alone formerly re- 



192 Principles of Secondary Education 

quired the constant supervision of two teachers. Not only 
these two teachers but all others as well are now released 
from police duty, and the spirit of the school is greatly im- 
proved as a result of the absence of a jarring relation between 
teachers and pupils. 

It hardly needs to be said that the improvement of the be- 
havior and the solution of problems of discipline are not the 
chief reasons for enlisting the aid of students in the discipline 
of the school. A recognition of the school as a social institu- 
tion forming the habits of social thought of its young citizens 
will furnish ample reason for developing in them the habit 
of cooperation. If they were citizens of a despotism, they 
should be governed by a despot in order that they might 
develop the habit of immediate and unquestioning obedience. 
Inasmuch as they are citizens of a repubhc that depends for 
its success upon the thoughtful cooperation of its citizens it 
seems clear that in the school where they have an unquestioned 
community interest they should acquire the habit of thinking 
in terms of commimity welfare. 

Athletics, dramatics, the school paper, clubs devoted to 
certain studies or interests, all form a point of contact for 
student and faculty cooperation. One reason why the 
athletics present such a vexatious problem in many a school 
is that the school is run as a despotism and the athletics as 
more or less of a democracy. The two spirits do not mix, and 
the school has something of the same sort of troubles that arise 
when primitive peoples who have not learned to assume the 
responsibilities of democracy attempt to form a democratic 
government. More democracy may not be the cure for the 
evils of so-called democracy in Mexico and China, but in the 
pubHc high school of an American town where the govern- 
ment of the city, the state, and the nation are democratic, 
where the social traditions for centuries past are democratic, 
it would seem that a properly guided democracy is the natural 
and the appropriate form of government. 



The Organization of the High School 193 

HUMANIZING THE SCHOOL. — A democratic spirit 
that secures the interest and cooperation of the students will 
go far toward humanizing the school. In our large city schools 
it is often extremely difficult to avoid so much system that 
the whole school becomes mechanical. The necessity of 
impartiahty leads to the statement of definite rules whose 
invariable application often works needless hardship. " Up- 
holding the standard " ^ easily becomes the fetish of a small 
mind, and the application of a rule or a precedent is an easy 
way out of a difficulty for an administrator of the martinet 
type. In a large city school the principal cannot possibly 
know personally any considerable proportion of his students. 
Home conditions, financial limitations, special abilities and 
blind spots, ambitions, vocation opportunities, — these and 
many other considerations demand individual treatment if 
the school is to educate individuals as they are instead of 
educating the " average " boy or girl, who of course does not 
exist. Then there is the longing for sympathetic understand- 
ing and for the counsel of older people that gives the teacher 
of the adolescent his greatest opportunity. The organization 
of the high school whereby a pupil recites to four or five differ- 
ent teachers every term and possibly to an entirely different 
group the next term or year makes it very difficult to human- 
ize a large school so as to meet these evident needs. 

Student Advisor System. — Any system of advisorship 
is open to the objection of mechanizing a function that in its 
very nature is intimately personal, but in the large school 
such a system, plus those individual confidences that are 
sure to grow up in a more or less haphazard way, is better 
than the chance adjustments alone. In these important 
relationships that often mean much more to the pupil than 
any or all of his studies, the spirit of the school is the most 
important single factor. Nearly all teachers are glad of an 
opportunity to give themselves to their pupils. Where the 
1 See "The Worship of the Standard," W. H. Mearns, Proc. N. E. A., 1912. 



194 Principles of Secondary Educatio7i 

spirit is right, pupils respond cordially to the helpful attitude 
of the teachers. A sour, censorious spirit on the part of the 
administrator, however, is sure to spoil the good fellowship 
between pupils and faculty that might be the most potent 
influence for good in real education of his pupils.^ 

ADAPTING THE SCHOOL TO COMMUNITY NEEDS. 
— The administration of a high school must keep the school 
growing along all the lines in which it can be of service to its 
pupils and its community. It is precisely because the vast 
majority of high school administrators have failed at this 
point that there has been so violent an outcry from shrewd 
observers within the last few years. The high school has 
been following the traditions it inherited from the Enghsh 
so-called public school, which, of course, is not a public school 
at all, until it is being jolted into an awakening to its demo- 
cratic obligation to the community that is paying its bills. 
So the tendency to-day is strongly toward a broadened cur- 
riculum and a more liberal administration of the curriculum 
that shall enable the school to give the various kinds of train- 
ing that its largely increased clientage demands. 

The Changed Problem. — It is needless to do more than 
mention the changed conditions that have brought about the 
tremendous change in the problem of the high school. When 
it first grew out of the old academy, its chief service was the 
secondary training of those who were to enter the professions. 
The toilers gained the mysteries of their various crafts from 
their immediate environment. The little red schoolhouse 
taught the rudiments, and only the more fortunate of the 
future farmers, mechanics, artisans, and tradesmen had a 
year or so at the academy or high school. Nearly everybody 
believed, as did the Committee of Ten as late as 1894, that the 
best education for the college-bound youth was the best for 
everybody. So the whole problem was simple. The revolu- 

1 See "Advisory Systems in High Schools," J. W. Raymer, M. Rev., 
December, 191 2. 



The Organization of the High School 195 

tion in our industry and in our living conditions has now 
brought the high school face to face with the problem of pro- 
viding secondary training for everybody. The real leaders 
of our educational policy see this clearly, and the adminis- 
trators of high schools must work out the problem or go the 
way of the discards of the craft into truck farming and the 
vending of life insurance. 

Study of Conditions Essential as a Basis for Change in 
Procedure. — This is the day of surveys. As never before, 
changes in procedure are based upon a careful study of con- 
ditions. So the high school should base its adjustment to 
the demands of its community upon accurate data rather 
than upon general theories. There are certain constants 
such as proper attention to physical needs, training in the 
use of the mother tongue, and in the fundamentals of citizen- 
ship, about which there is no dispute. Beyond these the school 
must be in a continual process of adjustment based on a study, 
first, of its students, and, second, of the community it serves. 

It would be comparatively easy to describe certain types 
of pupils that are found in every high school. The studious 
boy or girl finds ample provision in our present academic 
regime. The motor-minded youths with infinite varieties of 
instincts, ambitions, and possibilities are the ones who pre- 
sent the serious problem. The coming of the vocational 
counselor will help to determine what the school can do for 
them. Minute discussion of details under this topic would be 
out of place. The emphasis needs to be laid, however, on the 
duty of the high school administration to study this problem 
from the point of view of its pupils. 

The Community Element. — The study of the other ele- 
ment in the problem — the community — has many aspects. 
Americans so easily move from place to place that the im- 
mediate environment is no bar to the vocational aspirations 
of any boy or girl. Financial limitations, however, will often 
make it necessary to determine which of several types of train- 



196 Principles of Secondary Education 

ing any given school shall afford. Superintendent Spaulding, 
formerly of Newton, Massachusetts, has given some most 
valuable suggestions ^ of methods of approaching this problem. 
Among other things he shows the relative success in the high 
school of the pupils from the various grammar schools, the 
cost of instruction in various subjects, the comparative num- 
ber of pupils receiving training in various lines, and the dis- 
tribution of workers in the principal skilled industries of 
Boston as shown by the last census. In discussing the problem 
of adjusting education to society's need of service he says: 

"Just what we mean by preparing adequately our secondary 
school pupils as a whole to meet the wide range of legitimate 
service that society is demanding of the oncoming generation 
can be shown more clearly if we direct our attention to a lim- 
ited portion of the field of secondary education and to a few 
types of service that society demands. In the Newton Voca- 
tional School the boys are learning certain trades, known as 
machine-shop, pattern-making, electrical, cabinet-making, 
and printing. The proportionate distribution of the total 
number of boys in the school among these several trades is 
represented by the solid black bars on Chart IX. These 
bars are drawn on the scale of one hundred ; that is, the total 
of the four bars equals 100 per cent, or the total number of 
boys in the school ; of these 44 per cent are learning machine- 
shop and pattern-making trades, 25 per cent electrical trades, 
and so on. 

"Similarly there is represented on this chart by crossed 
bars the distribution of workers in the principal skilled indus- 
tries of Boston as shown by the last census ; for example, 
the chart shows that 30 per cent of such workers are engaged 
in the metal trades and 27 per cent in printing and publishing. 
Note that each school trade is represented on the chart im- 
mediately above that actual trade for which the school trade is 
preparing its pupils. 

" This chart is of no value in itself ; it has been prepared and 
is presented solely to show the type of chart, or charts, that 
both the educational and industrial, also the commercial 

^ 'Education, December, 1913. 



The Organization of the High School 197 

and professional, worlds need. Similar to this chart, there 
should be constructed a chart, or rather a series of charts, 
based on adequate data, that would show, on the one hand, 
the proportionate distribution of workers engaged in industrial, 
commercial, and professional pursuits, and, on the other hand, 



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the proportionate distribution of pupils, including those in 
private as well as those in pubHc institutions, among various 
courses of training that definitely prepare for different types 
of service. Such charts should include the data gathered 
from a large area ; all New England would not be too large an 



198 Principles of Secondary Education 

area, anything less than the state would be too small, for the 
output of any school may easily adjust itself to the demands 
for service in a region extending far beyond the limits of the 
community, even though that community be a large city, in 
which the school is located. 

'' It would be highly desirable to have a series of charts of this 
type national in their scope, and also a considerable number of 
series, each covering a section of country somewhat unified 
from the industrial and commercial standpoint ; state charts 
would serve fairly well if all states, or all states in a unified 
section, were charted. 

" Just how could such charts be used to advantage ? Let us 
illustrate concretely with this chart. Suppose this chart rep- 
resented conditions in the skilled industries and in the trade 
schools of all kinds, not of Boston and Newton, but of all New 
England. It would show to the trade schools throughout 
that region that training for the metal and wood-working 
trades was being relatively overdone, that training for the 
electrical trades was being enormously overdone, that training 
for printing and publishing was underdone, while no training 
at all was being provided for the remaining trades, boot and 
shoe, sheet metal, and marble and stone. It would then be 
incumbent on the schools to bring about a different distribu- 
tion among their pupils just entering on their training, dis- 
couraging entrance on trades hkely to be oversuppUed, and 
encouraging entrance on trades likely to be undersupplied 
with workers, perhaps establishing new courses of training in 
order to turn out a skilled product capable of rendering the 
greatest service. 

'' It is scarcely necessary to say that the value of these charts, 
to be used in this way, would depend on their up-to-dateness. 
In their educational features they should be revised every 
year, for the effort of many schools to adjust their training to 
the demands for service might, if long unchecked, result in a 
maladjustment as bad as that which they had sought to cor- 
rect ; for example, noting one year that training for electrical 
trades was being greatly overdone, while that for printing and 
publishing was being underdone, the correction of this malad- 
justment might soon result in a reversal of these conditions. 
In their industrial, commercial, and professional features, these 



The Organization of the High School 199 

charts should be revised as often as the necessary data become 
available. 

" If the state and the nation are really in earnest about voca- 
tional education and vocational guidance, the incalculable 
value of charts like these, both to education and to indus- 
trial, commercial, and professional interests, becomes at once 
apparent." 

One of the most interesting features of Superintendent 
Spaulding's study deals with the purchasing power of a dollar 
as expressed in the number of pupil-hours of recitation it 
would buy. He discovered that a dollar bought 5.9 pupil- 
hours recitations in Greek, 23.8 in French, 19.2 in English, 
41.7 in vocal music. Here is an interesting commentary on 
the moot question of educational values. Every school ad- 
ministrator is obliged to think of the financial aspects of his 
problem, and doubtless many will agree with Superintendent 
Spaulding when he says: " I was convinced, by very con- 
crete and quite local considerations, that when the obligations 
of the past year expired, we ought to purchase no more Greek 
instruction at 5.9 pupil-recitations for a dollar. So this 
year, for the first time in the history of the Newton high 
school, we are buying no Greek; until last year's price can 
be materially reduced, we shall continue to invest in other 
subjects." 

The Cooperation of Industry Necessary to the Full- 
est Service of the Secondary School. — It may be ob- 
jected that this view of the problem contemplates no dis- 
tinction between the high school and the trade school. The 
obvious answer is that if the pubHc is to provide for the sec- 
ondary education of all of its children, it must of necessity in- 
clude the elements of the various lines. of activity required 
by any proportionately large number of pupils. If it is to 
require school attendance to the age of sixteen, as now seems 
probable, it must recognize the various types of mind that 
become evident during the first half of adolescence. In this 



200 Principles of Secondary Education 

extension of the scope of the school, industry must cooperate. 
Such schemes as the half-time plan at the University of Cin- 
cinnati and the schools of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, will 
doubtless play an increasingly large part in this readjustment. 

This Broader Service demands Open-mindedness of 
the Principal. — In this broader service the administration 
will find numerous opportunities. Every school tries to keep 
track of the progress of its individual pupils term by term. 
Every teacher is in some sense a personal and vocational 
adviser. What is to be done with the pupil whom the course 
he is taking fails to reach? To fail at this point is to fail in 
the most important single duty of a principal. The distin- 
guished success of a few pupils in college becomes a reproach 
upon a pubHc school that can show nothing but ignominious 
dismissal or crowding out for pupils of a different type. The 
principal who year after year permits teachers to fail from 
20 to 40 per cent of their pupils would speedily walk the 
streets in search of a job if, as superintendent of a manufac- 
turing plant, he were throwing into the scrap heap a similar 
percentage of his raw material. 

This larger adjustment of the school to the needs of its 
pupils and to the broader service of the community will not 
be performed without the principal's leadership. Once the 
spirit of social service is developed in a school, there will not 
be lacking a wealth of suggestion and self-devotion on the 
part of the faculty. Leadership, however, it must have, and 
leadership it cannot receive from the rightful leader unless 
his conception of the place of the school in society is broadened 
by a vision that reaches far beyond the traditions of mere 
inculcation of knowledge. 

So the progressive administrator will not display the dog- 
matic hostility to innovations that too often characterizes 
the schoolman who has passed his fortieth birthday. Such 
suggestions as Commissioner Claxton has recently made ^ 

^ School Review, March, 1914. 



The Organization of the High School 201 

of a longer school day and a longer school year; the sixty- 
minute period, half of which is given to preparation of the 
lesson; the vocational guidance scheme of Principal Davis 
of Grand Rapids, Michigan; the Gary scheme, the six-and- 
six plan ; part-time classes, — all these will be given thought- 
ful and sympathetic consideration. Probably none of them 
will be adopted entire. Few will fail to furnish suggestions 
that can be adapted to local conditions. 

THE PRINCIPAL AND THE TEACHER. —As is the 
principal, so is the school. The spirit of his administration 
is sure to be reflected by both faculty and students. A heavy 
responsibility of leadership rests upon him, and with it splen- 
did possibilities of service. His relationship with his faculty 
will not end with organization and discipline, but will be felt 
in every classroom if the school is not too large. It stands 
to reason that he can seldom lay claim to scholarship in all 
the lines of study in the curriculum. If he is wise, he will be 
very modest in asserting himself along purely scholarly lines, 
because, if for no other reason, a frank admission of the ob- 
vious fact that he knows less about a subject than the special- 
ist who is teaching it is much more conducive to confidence 
than the assumption of knowledge he does not possess. In 
one particular, however, he may justly question the specialist 
on his own ground. As principal he must have a very definite 
idea why every subject is taught. Too often the specialist 
has never asked himself this vital question. He has studied 
his subject because he likes it. In it he finds the scholar's 
joy of achievement. Only too often he is teaching his subject 
rather than his boys and girls. Here should enter the prin- 
cipal as an enacting clause for that particular specialist. 

This is often a difficult, sometimes an impossible, task. 
The unfortunate tendency of scholarship to view learning as 
an end in itself, — to forget the distinction between knowl- 
edge and wisdom, the tendency of teachers to live isolated 
lives, the cloistered vanities of intellectual Pharisaism, all 



202 Principles of Secondary Education 

these make certain types of the " schoolmarm " — of both 
sexes — not infrequently a pretty difficult proposition. Hap- 
pily, the proportion of such incrusted personifications of text- 
book learning are usually very small compared with the 
whole faculty. Sometimes one can be made an office assist- 
ant, sometimes a progressive school board or a pension fund 
comes to the rescue, sometimes such an infliction has to be 
endured as a limitation, like chronic appendicitis when the 
surgeons refuse to operate. 

Who shall Pass ? — ■ An inevitable point of contact on 
this question of the purpose of the various subjects in the 
course will come in the grading of pupils. Professor George 
Drayton Strayer ^ of Columbia University has made a study 
of the markings given by various teachers in a subject and of 
those given by the same teacher at different times. He has 
shown that the standards of different teachers as well as those 
of the same teacher at different times are exceedingly variable. 
Who shall pass and who shall fail ? What is to be the attitude 
of the administration on this question that is most vital to 
the pupils ? What is the school to do with a condition that 
shows such an appalling percentage of failure as is evidenced 
by the New York Regents' examinations ? The report for 
January and June, 19 13, shows a failure of 28.8 per cent in all 
subjects. In all Latin subjects the failures were 34.4 per 
cent; in all mathematics, 32.9; in plane geometry, 40.2; in 
science, 34.6; in comrnercial subjects, 37.2. Yet the passing 
mark is only 60 per cent. Pupils are not permitted to take 
the examinations unless they have spent the specified time in 
class, and the majority of first-year subjects have been elimi- 
nated from the examinations. All of these considerations 
would tend to make the percentage of failure lower. 

Limitation of the Teacher whose Chief Interest is in his 
Subject. — ■ If these figures represent the high school failures 
throughout the country, it would seem that one of two things 

^ Education, December, 1913. 



The Organizatimi of the High School 203 

is true : either the tasks set for the pupils are badly adapted 
or the teaching is poor. The schools of New York State are, 
of course, compelled to follow the Regents' courses and take 
the Regents' examinations, but schools under a less rigorous 
regime should make it their business to see that their balance 
sheets do not show nearly 30 per cent failures. This is a 
plain duty of the administration, one that will not infrequently 
bring him into sharp and decisive controversy with teachers 
who are unduly strenuous in their devotion to their subjects. 
" I always discover in the first two weeks which of my pupils 
can do algebra," says one such teacher, " and then I teach 
them. Usually they are about 25 per cent of the class. I 
frankly tell the others that if they can't do the work, they 
must take the consequences." If every pupil is to be com- 
pelled to take algebra, a requirement that has little but tradi- 
tion to support it, this teacher should be forced to change his 
practice or leave the profession. His case is in much greater 
need of discipline by the principal of the school than is that 
of a boy who frankly refuses to prepare his lessons, because 
the boy is injuring only himself, while the teacher, on his own 
confession, is injuring 75 per cent of the pupils assigned him. 
The Purpose of Teaching a Given Subject should determine 
Content and Method. — In schools that have a fair degree 
of freedom as to the interpretation of any unit of the 
course there is an opportunity for the principal not only 
to see that pupils are not given work that is beyond the reach 
of the majority of the class, but also to see that the subjects 
really contribute something of value after they are learned. 
The following extracts from an editorial by M. V. O'Shea in 
the School Review for January, 19 13, indicates the progress 
that is now well under way, but that has by no means reached 
its goal. 

"It ought to hearten any teacher to note the changes which 
are taking place in our methods of teaching, particularly in the 
secondary school. The writer has been observing the new 



204 Principles of Secondary Education 

order in a high school with which he is well acquainted. Five 
years ago German was taught to beginners in this school very 
largely from a grammatical textbook. After two years of 
instruction, the typical pupil could read a little classical Ger- 
man, but he could not read even this very readily or with 
genuine enjoyment. But to-day, in this same high school, 
pupils are at the outset introduced to spoken German, and 
they are required to speak it, to read it, and to write it almost 
from the beginning. They are now about as facile in the use 
of the language after six weeks of instruction as they formerly 
were after two years of grammatical drill. 

"Five years ago the pupils in English classes memorized 
rhetorical rules, and read over examples in which they were 
embodied. Occasionally they would write a theme in the 
attempt to apply the rules which they had learned. To-day 
they are reading entire selections illustrating effective modes 
of expression, and they are writing a good deal with a view to 
expressing themselves on familiar subjects in a direct, clear, 
and pleasing manner. Five years ago algebra was taught as 
a purely formal, s3niibolical subject. But now there is con- 
siderable improvement, since pupils are constantly solving 
practical problems which have a more or less direct bearing 
upon everyday affairs, though we think still further improve- 
ment can be made in regard to this subject. 

"We might go through with practically all of the subjects 
taught in this high school and show radical and encouraging 
reform in the way of emplo3dng vital and effective methods 
of teaching. The aim of making teaching go to the mark, in 
the sense that it will enable the pupil without waste of time 
or energy to get a subject as it will be of service in real life, is 
apparently coming to be accepted and generally practiced by 
teachers in the high school." 

An Illustration from History. — Perhaps no subject in 
the curriculum has been worse taught than history. The 
teacher has usually assigned so many pages of the textbook 
and been entirely satisfied when they have been parroted 
back to her. Professor John Dewey has shown the approach 
to this subject in a way that illustrates the duty of the ad- 



The Organization of the High School 205 

ministration of a school to see that the subjects in the cur- 
riculum really function in the educational process. Says 
Professor Dewey: ^ 

"History is vital or dead to the child according as it is, or 
is not, presented from the sociological standpoint. When 
treated simply as a record of what has passed and gone, it 
must be mechanical, because the past, as the past, is remote. 
Simply as the past there is no motive for attending to it. The 
ethical value of history teaching will be measured by the extent 
to which past events are made the means of understanding the 
present, — affording insight into what makes up the structure 
and working of society to-day. Existing social structure is ex- 
ceedingly complex. It is practically impossible for the child 
to attack it en masse and get any definite mental image of it. 
But type phases of historical development may be selected 
which will exhibit, as through a telescope, the essential con- 
stituents of the existing order." 

"One reason historical teaching is usually not more effective 
is that the student is set to acquire information in such a way 
that no epochs or factors stand out in his mind as typical; 
everything is reduced to the same dead level. The way to 
secure the necessary perspective is to treat the past as if it 
were a projected present with some of its elements enlarged." 

"History is equally available in teaching the methods of 
social progress. It is commonly stated that history must be 
studied from the standpoint of cause and effect. The truth of 
this statement depends upon its interpretation. Social life 
is so complex and the various parts of it are so organically 
related to one another and to the natural environment, that it 
is impossible to say that this or that thing is the cause of some 
other particular thing. But the study of history can reVeal 
the main instruments in the discoveries, inventions, new 
modes of life, etc., which have initiated the great epochs of 
social advance ; and it can present to the child types of the 
main lines of social progress, and can set before him what have 

^ Moral Principals in Education, Houghton Mifflin Co., p. 36 £f. 



2o6 Principles of Secondary Education 

been the chief difl&culties and obstructions in the way of prog- 
ress. Once more this can be done only in so far as it is recog- 
nized that social forces in themselves are always the same, — 
that the same kind of influences were at work one hundred and 
one thousand years ago that are now working, — and that 
particular historical epochs afford illustration of the way in 
which the fundamental forces work." 

The Principal must visit Classes. — It follows, of course, 
that if the principal is to give the proper direction to 
the teaching in his school, he must visit classes. He must 
carry with him a vital philosophy of education, a keen sense 
of social values, a clear vision of his community and its needs, 
as well as a thorough understanding of the political, industrial, 
economic, and social forces that are shaping our civilization. 
He will not be able to evaluate the methods of his teachers 
unless he has this broader view of the place of the school in a 
democracy. 

His discussion of the class work must be specific. He can 
point out to the younger members of his faculty many faults 
in technique that they will be only too glad to correct. He 
should be able to secure from all those not hopelessly prej- 
udiced some response to his suggestion of the larger purpose 
of their various lines of instruction. He should make his 
ideals clear in his faculty meetings and follow them up with 
frequent visits and with many informal personal conferences. 
In the larger schools much of this detail work of supervision 
and conference will have to be done by the heads of depart- 
ments. Inevitably, the time of the principal of one of our 
large city schools is largely taken up in meeting a great num- 
ber of people — teachers, pupils, parents, and others — who, in 
certain relations with the school, ought to meet the official 
head himself. In such schools the leadership of the teaching 
force must be exercised to a great extent through the heads 
of departments. This will become much more efficient if 
the cabinet system is used, and policies are inaugurated which 



The Organization of the High School 207 

represent the judgment of the cabinet rather than the ipse 
dixit of the principal. 
The Teachers' Meeting. It should be Democratic. — 

The teachers' meeting, also, can be made a real force in the 
school. The cabinet is, or should be, a representative body. 
If the heads of departments really discuss matters with their 
teachers rather than lecture to them, they will bring to this 
cabinet meeting the composite judgment of their departments. 
The teachers' meeting, on the other hand, more nearly rep- 
resents a truly democratic assembly. It may only too easily 
degenerate into a profitless debating society with a few lo- 
quacious performers in star roles. To prevent this there 
should always be a very clear understanding when, and un- 
der what conditions, subjects are open to general discussion. 
Matters of routine detail can best be handled by mimeographed 
sheets of directions. These should be directions, not sugges- 
tions. Just what order of procedure is to be followed in re- 
organizing the school, for example, it is the province of the 
administration to determine, with whatever previous counsel 
it may seek. When the order is issued, it should be explained 
so clearly in a teachers' meeting that it cannot be misunder- 
stood, the explanation should be clinched by the direction 
sheet, and then teachers should be held as rigorously to the 
letter of the order as would employees in any well-directed 
business. 

But mere details should occupy relatively Kttle of the 
time of the teachers' meetings. The principal who has a 
philosophy of education underlying his policies owes it to his 
faculty to make them understand his ideas. He will, there- 
fore, very frequently discuss in some detail the educational 
questions involved in his program, and he will add a word of 
comment and interpretation to the incidents of the day's 
work whenever he can thereby make himself more clearly 
understood. But he will carefully avoid the appearance of 
continual lecturing, and he will endeavor to call out the best 



2o8 Principles of Secondary Education 

in his faculty. A successful piece of work done in the school 
and explained in the teachers' meeting by the teacher re- 
sponsible will often prove richer in suggestion than much of 
the principal's own comment. The public approbation ac- 
corded for good results is a powerful incentive to the faculty. 
A definite problem announced beforehand for consideration 
will often find ready solution from the discussion of those who 
see it from an angle other than that of the principal. A volun- 
tary meeting occasionally where those teachers most interested 
contribute their ideas over a cup of tea will frequently reveal 
unsuspected strength and resourcefulness that are available 
for assistance to the administration. A committee report 
on an important problem will bring out valuable discussion 
and enlist greater interest in the general management of the 
school. It will also help teachers to see the many-sidedness 
of administrative problems. Too often the removal of a 
chronic difficulty looks to them so simple that they pass un- 
favorable judgments which would be withheld if they could 
come to see the whirlpool they would steer into in avoiding 
the rock they wish to shun. A reasonably variety in the 
program, opportunity for teachers to contribute, an evident 
purpose behind every meeting, live suggestions that can be 
applied directly in the class instruction, efficient interpreta- 
tion of the activities, aims, and achievements of school will 
help to make the teachers' meeting one of the most vital 
elements in the progress of a school. 

SCIENTIFIC MEASUREMENT ESSENTIAL. — One 
point of view of the utmost importance in all school manage- 
ment is just beginning to claim the attention of high school 
principals. For years we have gone on disputing about the 
value of various subjects in the curriculum, about fundamental 
theories of education, and about methods of organization, 
without studying how our results can be measured scien- 
tifically. Willy-nilly, we must compare the work of various 
teachers, we must report one for promotion and perhaps 



The Organization of the High School 209 

another for dismissal. We must settle questions of curricu- 
lum and method because there is no one else to decide, and 
because we think that we are the ones best quahfied to de- 
cide. For the most part we have done so in the past with 
comparatively Httle definite data. We have been obliged to 
support our conclusions with a few incidents that are more 
or less typical — or that we think are typical. We have 
measured our results with the yardstick of our desires or 
perhaps of our prejudices, and we have dogmatically an- 
nounced our conclusion in universal affirmations. Fortunately 
the trail is now being blazed for a surer path. 



80 90 100 




Graph showing an Uneven Department. — While the 
departments of education in our great universities are making 
elaborate studies, formulating various units of measurement, 
publishing the results of their experiments, and furnishing 
data that can be used as a basis for comparison, every high 
school principal who is not too heavily burdened can apply 
some part of the method of these investigations in his own 
school. If he will attempt to tabulate in graphic form some 
of the records of his own school, he will be amazed at the 
results. For example, the chart above shows the percentage 
of pupils passed by various teachers in the same department 
of one school. 

Each fine represents the work of one teacher in the depart- 



2IO Principles of Secondary Education 

ment. The blank portion shows the percentage of pupils 
passed without examination. The shaded portion shows the 
percentage examined and passed, and the black portion shows 
the percentage failed. It is evident that there is very great 
diversity of practice in this department. Some of this vari- 
abiHty may be caused by excellent reasons. At least, how- 
ever, it is subject to question why Teacher A should exempt 
80 per cent of his pupils, while Teacher S exempts only 4 per 
cent of his. Possibly conditions for this particular term 
were unusual. Similar exhibits for several terms, however, 
in which each teacher handled a variety of the subjects of 
the department, would show conclusively whether or not 
Teacher S habitually marked forty-five times as severely as 
Teacher A. If he does, the chance of a pupil's passing this 
subject in this school would seem to depend largely on his 
good or ill fortune in the teacher to whom he is assigned. 
Many other questions would be raised by an efhcient adminis- 
trator who found that a study of one of his departments 
showed such results as these. One of the most evident 
questions would concern the efficiency of the department 
head. 

Typical Statement of Pupil-hours per Teacher. — The 
fundamental question of the allotment of teachers to depart- 
ments too often depends on the skill of the head of the depart- 
ment in presenting his claims to the principal or in some un- 
fortunate cases to the superintendent or to members of the 
Board of Education. A very simple study of the pupil-hours 
per teacher will show at once where teachers are needed, or 
at least raise the question clearly what special consideration 
is to be given to the subjects that have to be handled in smaller 
groups, or to those which, like English, make unusual demands 
upon the teacher's time. A glance at the following statement 
of pupil-hours per subject in a certain school removes the 
question of the allotment of teachers from the realm of mere 
^ispute: 



The Organization of the High School 211 

Subject Pupil-hours per Teacher 

English . 508 

Latin 462 

French 604 

German . 666 

Science 691 

History 681 

Commerce 667 

Mathematics 657 

Domestic science and art 467 

The method of a scientific statement of facts can be applied 
to school administration in an infinite variety of ways. A 
principal who has a grasp of the method can use it to the 
great advantage of his school in ascertaining where the school 
is efficient and where it is failing. He can also by this means 
present facts in such a way as to transfer many disputed 
questions from the realm of opinion to that of fact. He can 
effectually meet many criticisms that have their origin in 
insufficient data, snap judgments, or mere prejudice. 

THE PRINCIPAL AND THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
— The presentation of conclusions drawn from a study of 
conditions belongs to the principal. He is the expert, and so 
long as his conclusions are well-founded they should be ac- 
cepted by the powers above him as the basis for the develop- 
ment of the school. The Board of Education that continually 
hampers its principal by meddling in affairs that belong to 
him, is one of the most discouraging hindrances to educational 
progress. Their proper relation to the executive head of a 
school or of a system should be similar to that of the board of 
directors of a corporation. Doctor Frederick W. Taylor, the 
father of scientific management in America, has defined the 
relations of such a board in a way that should be considered 
by any school board that thinks it should exercise the function 
of superintendent or principal. In a lecture before the Har- 
vard School of Business Administration, Doctor Taylor 
said: 



212 Principles of Secondary Education 

"The proper functions of the board of directors would be, 
for instance, to select, after having proper evidence presented 
to it, the broad and general type of management to be intro- 
duced in the establishment. . . . After having done this, and 
after having broadly stated the poHcy of the company, as to 
payment of wages and salaries, they should not mess into the 
detail of the personnel — by ordering the president to employ 
this man, or discharge that man, or promote another man. 
Nor should they vote a reduction of wages or an increase of 
wages contrary to the leadership of their president. 

"Other functions of the board of directors should be, for 
example, dictating the broad policy to be followed in the sales 
department ; namely, whether the sales are to be mainly con- 
ducted through agencies or traveling salesmen, and the 
extent and kind of advertising to be used. Again, however, 
the details of the executive work should be left under the 
direction of the president. The general financial policy of the 
company should also be one of the functions of the board 
of directors, as well as the broad lines along which progress is 
to be made. That is, the decision as to the type of new prod- 
uct to be manufactured and sold, and the volume of business 
which is to be prepared for. 

"The president should lead his board of directors rather 
than be a tool to be guided by them in detail ; and when it 
becomes impossible for the president to lead in the carr3dng 
out of the general poHcy of the board, another man should be 
selected for the head of the business who is in harmony with 
the board's wishes and competent to lead them. 

"The world's experience in all directions has demonstrated 
the utter impracticabihty of doing successfully executive work 
under the management of a body of men either large or small. 
An executive committee of one is the best committee to have in 
charge of executive work. The president should be free to 
have as many advisers around him as he wants,, and these 
men can be called an executive committee as well as by any 
other name ; but their duties should be those of advisers. In 
all executive acts they should be under the orders of the presi- 
dent and they should not be allowed to control his acts by a 
majority vote. He should in principle occupy the same posi- 
tion as the President of the United States. He should be free, 



The Organization of the High School 213 

practically, to select his own cabinet, and then should be in 
complete command of these men. The men under him should 
be free to advise him in the most emphatic manner, but the 
final decision in all matters should rest with him, and the 
board of directors should not entertain nor act upon appeals 
made to them from the cabinet officers beneath the president."^ 

HOW THE DIRECTION OF OUR HIGH SCHOOLS CAN 
BE MADE MORE ATTRACTIVE TO FIRST-CLASS MEN. 

— If our high schools are to be efficiently administered, the 
principalship must be made sufficiently attractive to com- 
mand the services of first-class men. No longer can the pub- 
He depend upon pure idealism as an incentive for young men 
to become teachers. School-mastering is no longer a minis- 
terial profession. The allurements of business are unques- 
tionably taking from the schools many of the most efficient 
men of experience as well as the vast majority of young men 
of superior education and administrative ability. A prin- 
cipal should have a good education, a strong moral sense, and 
enthusiasm for social service. He must also have first-rate 
executive ability. He must be able to meet people well, to 
judge human nature keenly, and to present his views clearly 
and convincingly. These are qualities that will command large 
returns and large freedom in the business world. Yet the 
public often demands such qualities at the price of a clerk or 
a bookkeeper. It often gets a man worth double the salary 
it pays and then requires him to do a large amount of clerical 
work that could be performed by a ten-dollar-a-week assist- 
ant. It very often expects him to do full service as a teacher, 
supervise the work of the rest of the faculty, and serve in a 
variety .-of public capacities classified under the omnibus 
title of " the Perfesser." In addition to this, many of the 
smaller towns subject him to carping criticism and inter- 
ference that only too frequently either make him a petty 

^Bulletin No. 5, Academic and Industrial Efficiency. Carnegie Founda- 
tion, 1910, p. 15. 



214 Principles of Secondary Education 

schemer with his mind fixed on petty affairs or drive him in 
disgust from the profession. 

In the cities there are many principals who are charged 
with the direction of from 1500 to 3000 pupils and the ex- 
penditure of from $100,000 to $300,000 annually. A difference 
in per-pupil cost of ten dollars a year would mean from $10,000 
to $30,000 per year. Moreover, the difference in real efficiency 
between a principal who grasps the full significance of his 
task and one who sees it only in the light of academic tradition 
cannot be measured, because it enters into the very Hves of 
the young people and through them into the communities 
they will help to form. Business would insist upon the best 
grade of ability in positions of similar importance, and it 
would make such a return in salary and in freedom to develop 
individual ideas that the best ability would be attracted to 
the positions. When the public exercises similar liberality 
it will be able to insist on a larger social return for its school 
budget. 

THE CURRICULUM.— When the American high school 
•first arose, and during what may well be termed the period of 
its struggle for existence, the need of higher education for any 
large percentage of our people was relatively sKght. With an 
elementary school system of very meager proportions still in its 
infancy; with the principle of general taxation for education 
scarcely established; with little surplus national wealth; with 
few of the pressing problems of government, industry, and 
human relations, with which we of to-day are so familiar, not 
as yet markedly in evidence; and with but a small portion of 
our present organized knowledge as yet available for purposes 
of instruction, it can readily be understood that the high school 
of the earlier period was very limited in. its scope, and was 
demanded by but a very small percentage of the people. 
Latin, Greek, and mathematics constituted the backbone 
and the bulk of all instruction; the course of study was the 
same for all; and the school was useful chiefly as a prepara- 



The Organization of the High School 215 

tion for entering some one of the denominational colleges of 
the time. 

The past fifty years, however, have witnessed very great 
and very significant changes in every feature of our national 
Kfe, and the pubHc secondary school has shared in these 
changes. Everywhere such schools have been adopted as a 
necessary part of a system of popular education, new classes 
of people have been attracted to them, and new subjects of 
instruction have been provided. The development of the 
secondary school since 1890, and particularly since 1900, has 
been marked. With the gradual evolution of the new con- 
ceptions as to the purpose and function of public education, 
there has been a gradually increasing demand that the second- 
ary schools shall more thoroughly meet the needs of the new 
classes in the population which have turned to them for help 
and enHghtenment. This has greatly changed the nature of 
high school work. 

First to be introduced were history and English literature, 
and then the modern languages. In the seventies and eighties 
came the sciences, first in book form and shortly afterward 
as laboratory studies. Manual training and domestic arts 
came to be recognized as teaching subjects for special schools 
in the late eighties, and have since been incorporated as parts 
of regular high school instruction. Business training, at 
first introduced as a concession to pubHc opinion and to meet 
the competition of the private *' business colleges," has since 
been adopted as a useful addition, and, in the larger city high 
schools, is being transformed into good, strong, commercial 
or business courses. Still more recently agriculture has been 
admitted as a useful subject of instruction, and the de- 
velopment of the agricultural high school has been very 
rapid. 

These many additions have affected the high school cur- 
riculum in two ways: (i) the old course has been expanded 
and crowded, resulting in the introduction both of elective 



2i6 Principles of Secondary Education 

studies and elective courses; and (2) new types of high schools 
have arisen by the side of the old to minister to the new needs. 
These changes may be illustrated by a few typical examples 
of high school curricula, chosen from different types of Ameri- 
can high schools, and by an enumeration of the different types 
of high schools which have been formed. 

Types of High School Curricula. — I. A small New Eng- 
land high school, in which the one fixed, traditional course 
of study, almost entirely based on book work, has had to 
give way to changing demands and admit a few electives 
during the last two years. This type of school is still very 
common in conservative communities and among rural high 
schools. 

First Year, Third Year, 

English Composition and Literature English Literature 
Ancient History Modern English History- 

Latin Latin (or German) 

Algebra Physics (or Bookkeeping and Busi- 

ness Arithmetic) 

Second Year, Fourth Year, 

English Composition and Literature English Literature 
Medieval History American History and Govern- 

Latin ment 

Geometry Latin (or German) 

Chemistry (or Typewriting and 
Shorthand) 

II. A medium-sized city high school, located in the Missis- 
sippi Valley. Here, by combinations, five different courses 
of instruction have been arranged, supposedly to fit different 
types of individuals. Such combinations are quite common, 
though the tendency is to decrease the number of required 
subjects and to increase the number of electives in each. In 
the administration of the school this is usually done in indi- 
vidual cases, though not indicated in the paper courses of 
study. 



The Organization of the High School 217 



I. Ancient Classical II. Modern Language III. History-English 
Course Course Course 



First Year, 


First Year, 


First Year, 


Latin 


German 


Latin or German 


Ancient History- 


Ancient History 


Ancient History 


English 


English 


English 


Algebra 


Algebra 


Algebra 


Second Year, 


Second Year, 


Second Year, 


Latin 


German 


Latin or German 


Greek 


Medieval History 


Medieval History 


English 


English 


English 


Geometry- 


Geometry 


Geometry 


Third Year, 


Third Year, 


Third Year, 


Latin 


French (or Spanish) 


Modern History 


Greek 


Modern History 


English 


English 


English 


Physics 


Physics 


Physics 


Drawing 


Fourth Year, 


Fourth Year, 


Fourth Year, 


Latin 


French (or Spanish) 


American History 


Greek 


American History 


and Government 


English 


and Government 


English 


(Elective) 


English 


(Elective) 




(Elective) 


(Elective) 


IV. Scientific 


Course V. Business Course 


First Year, 


First Year, 




German 


(any othei 


: course) 


Botany- 






English 






Algebra 






Second Year, 


Second Year 


J 


German 


(any other course) 


Zoology 






EngHsh 






Geometry 







2i8 Principles of Secondary Education 



IV. Scientific Course (Cont.) V. Business Course (Cont.) 



Third Year, 
Physics 
Drawing 
Trigonometry 
(Elective) 

Fourth Year, 
Chemistry 
Drawing 

American History and Govern- 
ment 
(Elective) 



Third Year, 
Spanish 

Business Arithmetic 
Bookkeeping 
Typewriting 

Fourth Year, 
Spanish 

Business Practice 
(Commercial Geography) 
(Commercial Law) 
(Shorthand) 



III. A large city high school, located in the West, where 
fixed courses have been abandoned. The school offers a wide 
range of subjects, requires certain fixed units by groups, and 
makes up a different course of study for each high school pupil. 
The following studies are offered, the numbers in parenthesis 
following each indicating the number of years of each subject 
offered by the school. 



Group I. — Languages 
Latin (4) 
Greek (3) 
German (4) 
French (2) 
Spanish (2) 



Group II. — English 

English Composition (2) 
English Literature (4) 
Hist. Eng. & Am. Lit. (i) 



Group III. — History 
Ancient History (i) 
Medieval History (i) 
Modern English History (i) 
General World History (i) 
Am. Hist. & Govt, (i) 



Group IV. — Mathematics 
Algebra (i, i|) 
Geometry (i, i^) 
Trigonometry (|) 
Surveying Q) 
Business Arithmetic (^) 

Group V. — Science 

Botany (i) 

Zoology (i) 

Biology (i) 

Physical Geography (i) 

Physics (i) 

Chemistry (i) 
' Geology Q) 

Astronomy (J) 

Group VI. — Miscellaneous 
Music (2) 

Freehand Drawing (2) 
Vocal Expression (2) 
Physical Training (4) 



The Orga^iization of the High School 219 

Group VII. — VbcATiONAL Household Management (i) 

Mechanical and Geometrical Bookkeeping (i) 

Drawing (2) Business Practice (i) 

Manual Training (3) Shorthand (i) 

Domestic Science (2) Typewriting (i) 

Rules governing combinations and graduation : 

(i) Students, to graduate, must complete 15 years' work, viz., four 
studies each year for three years, and three studies one year. (2) Students 
may, on permission, take as many as five studies or as few as three studies 
each half-year. (3) Students, to graduate, must have had two years' 
work in groups I and II, one year's work in each of the other groups, and 
four years' work in some one group. (4) Study cards must be made out 
each half-year, and must be approved by the principal and the parent. 

The three types of high school courses given above illustrate 
the development which has taken place, and the tendency. 
Excepting agriculture, all new forms of instruction are rep- 
resented in the one school. The advantages to the pupil 
are evident, while it is clear that such grouping of courses to 
meet individual needs as is provided for in the third type has 
advantages over that provided in the second type. 

In some cities high school development has taken a different 
direction, and instead of expanding the high school to meet the 
many different needs, new types of high schools have been 
founded, and type or class high schools have resulted. There 
are to-day, in different places, the following different types 
of secondary schools. 

(i) The so-called cultural or general high school; offering 
courses in the languages, literature, history, mathematics, and 
some science. This is distinctively a college preparatory 
high school. (2) The manual training high school ; offering 
courses in science, mathematics, modern languages and his- 
tory, English, and shopwork. This is preparatory for the 
engineering colleges, and work in shops and trades. It often 
includes the third type, for girls. (3) The household arts 
school. While usually included under the manual training 
school, a few such are being established separately. It offers 



220 Principles of Secondary Education 

courses in English, history, the sciences, and subjects relating to 
household management, and is a technical school for women's 
work. (4) The commercial high school. This is an intensi- 
fication of the commercial course, and offers good courses in 
modern languages, history, science, and office practice. It is 
preparatory for commercial pursuits on a larger scale than the 
old business course. (5) The agricultural high school. This 
offers courses in English, mathematics, sciences, some manual 
training and household science, and agricultural studies. It 
is preparatory for farm life, or for the colleges of agriculture. 

It is desirable both that these different types of high schools 
should exist separately in some cases, and in many other cases 
should be combined in one. In their beginnings all new types 
of schools usually prosper better if provided for separately; 
but, after these new schools have established themselves and 
their work has been accepted as a good and legitimate edu- 
cational effort, it is wise then to combine a number of such 
types in one school, and thus offer a larger range of choice to 
each high school pupil. The American high school, if it is to 
realize its highest educational purpose, should be preeminently 
a place for the testing of capacity, the development of tastes, 
and the opening up of vocational opportunities of many 
kinds. This involves intelligent oversight and direction on 
the part of teachers and principals, a rich and varied curricu- 
lum from which to select, and freedom from hard and fast 
prescriptions. 

THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 
— In the course of its evolution, the high school has developed 
an extensive program of studies, — four or five foreign lan- 
guages; English for every grade; mathematics for three or 
more years; two, three, or four sciences; history for two or 
more grades; and, in addition, manual and commercial sub- 
jects. These have contributed to the making of a prograrn 
far too extensive to be within the reach of any one pupil. 
For a time, with the introduction of new subjects less and 



The Organization of the High School 221 

less time was assigned to each, with the result that when the 
Report of the Committee of Ten was written, many large 
high schools were giving twelve and fourteen weeks' courses 
in science, short courses in history, and smatterings of three 
or more foreign tongues. The Report of the Committee of 
Ten greatly emphasized the desirability of an intensive treat- 
ment in the high school of relatively few subjects. The effect 
of this Report was only rarely the complete elimination of 
any subject from the high school, but generally resulted in a 
tendency to intensify and extend the treatment of each one. 
More than ever did it become necessary that the individual 
student should take but a part, and frequently a small part, 
of the entire range of subjects open to him. Another tendency 
contributing to the flexible course of study was the increasing 
range of capacity and interest found in the students of the 
high school. A variety of studies in science, drawing, com- 
mercial branches, and manual training were introduced to 
meet these demands. A third element in the development 
of the flexible course grew out of the conception in the Report 
of the Committee of Ten that it was of less importance what 
particular studies were pursued than what was the method 
employed in teaching them. From the standpoint of the 
majority of the Committee, each secondary school subject 
was assumed to have equal value with any other, if properly 
taught. It was, therefore, natural to assume, if a pupil mani- 
fested a strong aversion to Latin or mathematics, that some 
other equally well-taught subject could be substituted. 

Not long after the appearance of the Report, students of 
education began actively to question certain fundamental 
assumptions implicit in it, and particularly the disciplinary 
conception advocated by the Committee. It was commonly 
asserted that Latin, better than any other subject, trained 
faculties of observation, verbal discrimination, powers of 
analytical thinking, etc. Equally, it was claimed that the 
study of mathematics strengthened reasoning powers and 



2 22 Principles of Secondary Education 

greatly improved the capacity for systematic generalization. 
A series of critical articles, as well as certain investigations 
in psychological laboratories, tended during the last decade 
of the nineteenth century to unsettle existing preconceptions 
regarding mental discipline; in fact, there developed a tend- 
ency to assert that mental training should be a secondary 
consideration in the teaching of any subject, and that the 
subject itself should involve a content of knowledge or other 
power-producing material which should justify it, and that, 
in the course of its presentation, mental training would follow 
as an accompaniment. 

Finally, in recent educational theory there has grown up 
an increased belief in the wisdom of adapting education to the 
individual. This represents a considerable departure from 
an older theory of education, that the individual should be 
fitted to a given field of subject matter. This change came 
about, partly, from the causes already presented. It was 
found that not only the interests, but the needs and capacities 
of secondary school pupils vary greatly. Furthermore, it 
was found that the important end of education was to prepare 
individuals for some field of activity wherein that which was 
learned in the high school would find apphcation, either as 
culture or in vocational power. 

The foregoing influences resulted in the development of the 
so-called elective system. It is true that, from its beginnings 
in the academy, the secondary school program had been 
somewhat elastic, but its elasticity had assumed the form 
of alternative courses, each course, however, representing a 
fixed and unvarying demand on the pupil. Naturally, al- 
ternative courses varied mainly in their demands for foreign 
language and for science; English and mathematics were 
usually prescribed subjects. 

The elective system, however, carried the matter of al- 
ternative subjects to the point of allowing each pupil, within 
the limits of the range of subjects presented by the school 



The Organization of the High School 223 

and the other inherent restrictions of program, substantially 
to make up his own course. From the standpoint of the school 
or the pupil, the important consideration was not always so 
much the subjects which could be taken as those which could 
be omitted. During the last years of the nineteenth century 
and the first decade of the twentieth, the literature of secondary 
education was filled with discussions of the elective system. 
It was felt by some that it represented a demoralizing tendency 
in that it weakened the educational conception of discipline 
through the more difficult subjects. Educational conser- 
vatives feared that it meant a persistent discounting of classics 
and mathematics. They apprehended a rapid development 
of the more vocational studies, and denied that the individual 
pupil had any capacity for self-direction in the choice of a 
program of studies. They asserted that, from the standpoint 
of the best development of the individual, it was highly im- 
portant that certain fields of culture should be opened to him, 
even by compulsory methods. In only a few schools did the 
theory of free election of subjects make much progress. In 
these instances the graduation of the pupil was made to de- 
pend upon the accomplishment of a certain number of unil^ 
of work, but without reference to any specific subjects. He 
might omit history or mathematics, no less than a foreign 
language or a branch of science. More commonly the system 
took the form of a certain number of prescribed studies, with 
a considerable range of alternatives or options from which the 
pupil could choose. In the case of some large high schools, 
for the requirement of specific subjects there was substituted 
the demand that, for graduation, a minimum number of units 
of accomphshment in foreign language, science, history, etc., 
should be presented, the pupil, however, retaining the privilege 
of electing among the various subjects in science or history 
as the case might be. 

As a rule, few of the apprehended evils of the elective system 
have developed in practice. There has been an increased 



2 24 Principles of Secondary Education 

tendency to induce the pupil to make his selections not only 
with the approval of some advisory teacher, but of parents 
as well. The limitations of the school curriculum, even in 
the larger schools, have acted as an important barrier to free 
election. Furthermore, the fact that a considerable number of 
students anticipate entering college, where the entrance re- 
quirements are more or less prescribed, has prevented anything 
like a free use of possible electives. 

While the tendency is still to extend the possibilities of 
election of secondary school subjects, it is nevertheless true 
that important underlying problems must be solved before 
an adequate discussion of election is possible. There yet 
exists no satisfactory theory regarding educational values, 
especially of secondary school subjects. Quite universally, 
for example, algebra and geometry are prescribed for both 
boys and girls in secondary schools. Neither experience 
nor the tests of educational laboratories serve yet to dem_on- 
strate the superior value of these subjects. The same may 
be said to be true of the foreign languages so far as their train- 
ing value is concerned. The science subjects have undergone 
steady modification in modern education, becoming more 
formal and rigid. There is yet no satisfactory evidence that, 
as now taught, these sciences contribute in an important 
way to either culture or practical capacity in greater degree 
than other possible subjects. 

In prescribed programs it is the tendency to require subjects 
such as foreign language, mathematics, and science, which 
are most fully organized and which lend themselves most 
satisfactorily to traditional methods of pedagogic treatment. 
Until, however, there exists more satisfactory knowledge re- 
garding educational values, it will be difficult to treat the 
subject of the elective system with anything like finality. 
It can be easily seen that the arguments for and against 
election hinge upon the theory of educational values and the 
capacity of a school to effect individual programs adapted 



The Organization of the High School 225 

to the various pupils. If we believe that a limited number 
of well-organized secondary school subjects give either prac- 
tical capacity, cultural insight, or mental training to be 
equaled in no other way, then it is a fair assumption that the 
school program should make these subjects prescriptive. 
There is Httle place for election, since the self-knowledge of 
the pupil and the experience of his parents are altogether in- 
sufficient to offset the results of the constructive effort which 
has gone to the making of the programs. If, on the other 
hand, we are inclined to believe that the educational values 
of certain subjects have been greatly exaggerated, and that 
what the pupil shall study is of less importance than his 
interest in* the subject and the methods employed in teaching 
it, then it can easily be seen that satisfactory arguments can 
be made for allowing a part selection on the part of the pupil 
himself. 

Other factors naturally enter into the discussion. Freedom 
of election means, naturally, that popular teachers will be 
sought and unpopular ones avoided, — a result which may 
tend to demoralize administration, and may or may not tend 
to promote more effective pedagogical methods on the part 
of the teachers themselves. It is believed that free election 
would tend to promote the study of practical subjects, at the 
expense of the more cultural, but again the relative educational 
values of the two t3rpes will be disputed. It is highly probable 
that a more extended analysis of the subject of election .will 
have to wait a fuller and more scientific formulation of educa- 
tional theory, as applied to secondary school studies. 

There are many reasons for believing that the high school 
as at present organized contributes certain types of definite 
training more effectively than it develops culture and appre- 
ciation. On the other hand, the greatest deficiency of existing 
high school programs seems to be their incapacity to produce 
results of a persistent nature; for example, the study of a 
foreign language or of mathematics, even when well carried 

Q 



226 Principles of Secondary Education 

on, fails largely in the face of later demands; the general goal 
aimed at is not realized. Distinctions will have to be made 
among various high school studies, with a view to determining 
the specific principles or purpose which each should serve in 
a program of fairly well-defined educational ends, and in 
adapting to each subject its own suitable method. This may 
be illustrated in the case of English. One object of the teach- 
ing of English in the high schools is undoubtedly efificiency 
of expression, both oral and written. Another object, how- 
ever, and quite distinct from the above, is appreciation of 
good literature. It seems highly probable that these two 
ends will have to be attained by radically different methods. 
The same distinction will apply to certain of the sciences, 
when pursued from the standpoint of application in voca- 
tion on the one hand, or service in general culture on the 
other. 

The general discussion of the elective system has probably 
greatly promoted interest in the problems of educational 
values. It brought subjects into competition, as it were, in 
a definite way. Until, however, more knowledge is available, 
many educators will assume that the choices made by the 
pupil, even when dictated by him and caprice, may, and, so 
far as he is concerned, will be no worse than the choice made 
by a more or less inflexible system which not only fails to take 
account of him as an individual, but which, to a large extent, 
has had its origin independently of the study of any group 
whatever of actual living individuals. 

SIX-YEAR COURSE OF STUDY. — The fact that the 
American secondary school, unlike similar schools in Europe, 
takes the pupil at fourteen, or on the completion of an ele- 
mentary course extending over eight years, is to a certain 
extent one of the effects of the historical development of 
American education. The common school or the elemen- 
tary school was first established, and, in order to accomplish 
a full measure of general education, it involved eight or nine, 



The Organization of the High School 227 

and sometimes ten grades, each a year in length. The typical 
American elementary school of to-day consists of eight grades, 
and carries the average pupil from the age of six to the age 
of fourteen. The first secondary schools — the Latin gram- 
mar school and then the academy — took on something of 
the character of European secondary schools, in that they 
maintained preparatory classes in which attention was early 
given to some secondary school studies. The public high 
school, however, was almost universally designed to succeed 
the elementary school course, and to build on it. As a 
consequence, admission to the high school everywhere re- 
quires the completion of an eight-year elementary course, 
and brings the pupil in at approximately fourteen or fifteen 
years of age. 

This situation has obvious defects. It cannot be insisted, 
of course, that all American children, or even any consider- 
able number of them, should complete the high school course 
of study. For those who do, however, the postponement 
of the beginning of foreign language study, as well as of algebra 
and geometry, works undoubted harm. For the boy who is 
to go through high school and into college, there can be little 
doubt but that the years between twelve and fourteen under 
the present system of schooling are largely wasted, at least, 
when viewed from the standpoint of the mastery of particular 
studies which should assist in the higher schools. The atten- 
tion given to this subject in recent years has led to a fairly 
widespread demand for a six-year course of study in the high 
school, which should take pupils at approximately the age 
which is becoming customary in some European countries, 
and which especially should aid them to begin the study of 
foreign language at a time when the vocal and auditory organs 
are still plastic. The administrative difficulties have been so 
great, however, that only in rare instances has the experiment 
been made. The chief difficulty is found in the unwillingness 
of the American people to permit either a differentiation of 



228 Principles of Secondary Education 

schools or a differentiation of classes of studies before the 
elementary school course has been completed. On the other 
hand, there is little tolerance for the prescription of foreign 
language study for all pupils in the upper grades of the ele- 
mentary school. The result has been that, while a consider- 
able hterature has been produced bearing on the desirability 
of extending high school studies and high school methods 
downward, very httle of a practical nature has been accom- 
pHshed. 

The problem is now being approached in some cities in a 
different way. It is recognized that the boys and girls from 
twelve to fourteen years of age possess certain distinctive 
characteristics and educational needs, which should separate 
them from the primary school which has preceded. In not 
a few cities it is now customary to group the upper grades in 
what are sometimes called intermediate schools, where favora- 
ble opportunities may be given for manual training, domestic 
science for girls, commercial studies, and, in a few instances, 
foreign languages. While few of these schools have reached 
the point of differentiating their courses, there can be no doubt 
that in a large number of instances they are ready to do so, if 
pubhc opinion responds favorably. One of these schools in a 
Massachusetts city (Fitchburg) now receives pupils on the 
completion of the sixth grade, and admits them to any one of 
four courses. Certain studies, such as English, history, geog- 
raphy, and music are common for all, and are taken jointly 
in the classes. Certain other studies are alternative, and it 
is on the basis of these that the courses are distinguished. 
For example, boys who wish it may take two hours of manual 
training per day, and thereby become members of the industrial 
arts course; for them the arithmetic and drawing will also be 
somewhat speciaHzed along the lines of the industrial arts. 
Another group of boys and girls, instead of manual arts, may 
take a foreign language, the beginnings of algebra, geometry, 
and EngHsh history. This is obviously a high school prepara- 



The Organization of the High School 229 

tory course, and may legitimately be regarded as part of a six- 
year high school course, which it is hoped in time may be- 
come five years in length, thus admitting pupils to college one 
year earHer. A third course offers to girls two hours per day 
of household arts, the subject being treated very broadly, 
with related history and science. A fourth course, known as 
the commercial course, offers opportunities in typewriting, 
commercial arithmetic, the beginnings of bookkeeping, and a 
Hne of work wherein commercial geography and industrial 
history are combined. 

It is not intended that any of the above courses shall be vo- 
cational, but that some of them shall draw from the world of 
vocational activities studies and problems that are significant 
and vital to the pupils concerned. Neither is it intended that 
any of the above courses shall be a blind alley, in the sense that 
it leads to no higher work. Nevertheless, it is obvious that 
a pupil from the industrial arts course who wishes to go through 
high school will have to take additional time in order to meet 
the language requirements. 

The above represents a type of development in educational 
administration which will probably realize the purposes of 
the so-called six-year course of study, without invohdng 
premature differentiation of classes of pupils on the basis of 
their abihty or economic state in life. It will afford an op- 
portunity to make of foreign language study something more 
effective than is possible at the present time. It will promote 
departmental teaching, and the introduction of college-trained 
teachers in the higher grades. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. How do principals and heads of departments spend their time? 
Classify under: (i) instructing classes, (2) visiting classes of other 
teachers, (3) assisting in the general administration of the school. 

2. What is the relative efficiency of pupils from various grammar 
schools as measured by: (i) attendance, (2) remaining in school, (3) 
success in various subjects of instruction ? 



230 Principles of Secondary Education 

3. What is the relation of the size of classes to efficiency in instruction ? 

4. What is the earning power of graduates in relation to : (i) scholar- 
ship in various lines, (2) activity in student affairs ? 

5. Classify pupils' time allotment to the preparation of the various 
subjects of the curriculum. 

6. Classify causes of leaving school. Compare studies of Ayers, 
Van Denburg, and Strayer and Thorndike. 

7. What percentage of the total cost of the school is devoted to in- 
struction in work that has once been pursued unsuccessfully ? 

8. Study failures and eliminations from school in relation to : (i) 
outside social activities, (2) misfits in course of study, (3) vocational 
ambitions, (4) financial pressure. 

9. To what extent does the community life affect the high school in 
respect to : (i) courses offered, (2) the social life of the school, (3) prep- 
aration for higher education ? 

10. To what extent does the high school affect the life of the 
community ? 

1 1 . What is the average percentage of absence and tardiness ? 

12. Classify causes of absence and tardiness. 

13. How much does this absence cost in money ? 

14. How is the total time of the course in English divided between : 
(i) English literature, (2) oral composition, (3) written composition ? 

15. Experiment with 100 pupils taking foreign languages for a certain 
number of years and an approximately equal group taking no foreign 
language, but giving half as much time to English etymology and com- 
position in addition to the regular English course. Test by written 
composition, spelling, and examinations in word derivation. Classify 
for comparison, sentence and paragraph structure, correctness in diction, 
ease and facility of expression. 

16. What are pupils reading outside the work of the school ? 

17. What relation is there between pupils' outside reading and their 
success in various school subjects ? 

18. To what extent is there correlation between the departments as 
. shown by questions like the following : To what extent are teachers in 

other departments teaching English ? To what extent does drawing 
help in science, manual training, household arts ? To what extent does 
history illustrate current problems? 

19. What is the percentage of whole number entering who go to 
college ? Percentage of graduates who go to college ? 

20. What is the relation of success in college to scholarship in high 
school ? To participation in student activities ? 



The Organization of the High School 231 

21. How far is the outside reading of college students affected by the 
high school course in literature ? 

22. Classify college entrance examination questions in science and 
mathematics under, (i) questions having a practical application, (2) pure 
theory. 

REFERENCES 

Brown, J. F. The American High School. New York, 1909. 

BuRSTALL, S. A. English High Schools for Girls; their Aims, Organiza- 
tion, and Management. New York, 1907. 

Davenport, Eugene. Education for Efficiency. Boston, 1910. 

Dewey, John. Moral Principles in Education. Boston, 1909. (River- 
side Educational Monographs.) 
The School and Society. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1900. 

Gray, C. T. Variations in the Grades of High School Pupils. Baltimore, 

1913. (Educational Psychology Monographs.) 
HoLLiSTER, H. A. High School Administration. Boston, 1909. 
Johnston, C. H., ed. High School Education; Professional Treatment of 

the Administrative, Supervisory, and Specifically Pedagogical Fmictions 
of Secondary Education. New York, 191 2. 
Morrison, H. C, et al. Some Aspects of High-School Instruction and 
Administration. (National Society for the Study of Education. 

1914, Vol. 13, Pt. I.) 

Perry, C. A. Wider Use of the School Plant. New York Charities 

Pubhcation Committee, 1910. (Russell Sage Foundation.) 
Sachs, Julius. The American Secondary School and Some of its Problems. 

New York, 191 2. (Teachers' Professional Library.) 
Strayer, G. D., and Thorndike, E. L. Educational Administration; 

Quantitative Studies. New York, 191 3. 
Van Denburg, J. K. Causes of the Elimination of Students in Public 

Secondary Schools of New York City. Teachers College Publications, 

1911. 

Periodicals: — 

Academic and Industrial Efficiency. M. L. Cooke. Carnegie Founda- 
tion, Bulletin No. 5. 1909. 

Advisory Systems in High Schools. J. W. Raymer. Educational 
Review, 44:466-491. December, 191 2. 

Better Articulation of the Parts of the Pubhc School System. F. F. 
Bunker. Educational Review, 47 : 249-268. March, 1914. 

Committee on the Articulation of High School and College. N. E. A. 
Proceedings and Addresses. 191 2, pp. 667-673. 



232 Principles of Secondary Education 

The Distribution of Pupils in the Public High Schools. A. J. Inglis. 

Educational Review, 46:344-350. November, 1913. 
The Gap between the Elementary and the Secondary School. T. L. 

Wilson. Ediicaiional Review, 46 : 2gs-2gg. October, 1913. 
Is Scientific Accuracy possible in the Measurement of the Efiiciency 

of Instruction? G. D. Strayer. Education, 34:249-258. De- 
cember, 1 9 13. 
Junior College ; or Upward Extension of the High School. C. L. McLane, 

School Review, 21 : 161-170. March, 1913. 
Making a High School Programme. M. W. Richardson. School 

Review, 17 : 449-466. September, 1909. 
Measurement of Efficiency in Elementary and Secondary Schools. F. 

E. Spaulding. Education, 34:225-248. December, 1913. 
Organization of a Large High School. J. A. Bole. School Review, 

22: i-ii. January, 1914. 
Plan for the Reorganization of the American Public High School. 

Henry E. Brown. School Review, 22 : 289-301. May, 1914. 
Progressive High School Reorganization. R. A. Mackie. Education, 

33:420-427. March, 1 91 3. 
Reorganization of our School System. J. H. Francis. N. E. A. Pro- 
ceedings and Addresses. 191 2, pp. 368-376. 
Reorganization of Secondary Education in New Hampshire. H. A. 

Brown. School Review, 22 : 145-156 ; 235-248. March, April, 1914. 
Reorganization of the Grades and the High School. E. V. Robinson. 

School Review, 20 : 665-688. December, 191 2. 
Six-year High School. George Wheeler. School Review, 22 : 239-245. 

April, 1913. 
Studies in Secondary Education — Salaries and Teaching Conditions, 

Educational Bi-Monthly. February, 1914. 
A Study of Education in Vermont. Carnegie Foundation, Bulletin No. 7. 

1914. 
Teaching High School Pupils how to Study. E. R. Breslich. School 

i^mew, 20: 505-515. October, 191 2. 
The Worship of the Standard. W. H. Mearns. iV. E. A. Proceedings 

and Addresses. 191 2, pp. 193-200. 
Report of the Committee on School Inquiry, Board of Estimate and Ap- 
portionment of New York City, Vol. 2, pp. 61-219. 1914- 
U. S. Bureau of Education. Economy of Time in Education ; Report of 

the Committee of the National Council of Education. Bulletin 

No. 38, 1913. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL 

CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS. —A 

working definition of the term "private school" would be 
generally given and generally accepted in some such form as 
this: That while public schools are supported and controlled 
by the state government, private schools are self-supported 
and free of government control. As a corollary they are not 
open to all comers, but tend to be schools attended by a group 
or class. More is made of questions of personaHty and of special 
aim. 

The self-support characteristic of private schools may take 
either one of two forms. A private school may be a com- 
mercial venture supported by direct payments to the manager 
or " owner," or it may be supported by subscription or en- 
dowment, so that the element of profit is more or less elim- 
inated. The first form has comprehended, perhaps, the 
larger part of the private school group. Its characteristics 
are of course well known, and the sentiment of Socrates 
against it generally prevails. Commercial processes introduce 
self-advertising, often cunningly concealed but often very 
blatant; commercial attitudes of bargain and dicker encourage 
mutual hostilities and the taking of advantages on both sides. 
These things are unwholesome between teacher and taught. 
Moreover, commercial patronage is hardly the attitude for a 
true seeker of instruction. Yet these dangers are in practice 
not so great as they seem. In the first place, there are saving 
and antiseptic influences in the occupation itself which meet 
and repel these infections. Just as, in the modern world, the 

233 



234 Principles of Secondary Ed^ication 

publication of books and newspapers, or the production of 
art and music, is left solely to the support and judgment of 
the market, so churches, museums, schools, theaters may 
and do appeal to direct patronage without ruinous results. 
And there are also many counteracting advantages in this 
form of organization. Private-venture schools are always 
very close to the true demand of the public; what people 
want, they know. They tend, moreover, to collect about 
interesting and effective personalities. Private schools get 
more than their share of good as well as of bad teachers. The 
relation between teacher and taught, being a matter of free 
choice, and not controlled by a system of appointment, tends 
to be personal and endearing. Probably the most permanent 
service of private schools, since they are thus flexible, Hes in 
their utility as experimental schools. Their experiences 
serve as models or warnings to the community. Among 
what may be called the " marginal activities " of the school 
organization, private effort will always play a valued part ; 
for no step to advance in education has ever been taken with- 
out the leadership of private schools. They are not the home 
of lost causes and impossible loyalties; they work in advance 
of the main body. 

But though at present all lists of private schools are domi- 
nated by this type, yet the endowed schools seem to be in- 
creasing and are perhaps destined to play a leading role among 
private schools in the future. They are more permanent 
than private-venture schools, they have longer and riper 
tradition, they have generally more capital and resources, 
and they harmonize with the modern tendencies to com- 
bination and to large enterprises. The endowed private 
school may be a stately institution, indistinguishable in struc- 
ture and character from a large public school. It may have 
a long-descended pedigree; it may represent a religious tradi- 
tion, or a much-loved social tradition; it may have an honor- 
able history of educational attainment. It is by its per- 



The Private Secondary School 235 

manence emancipated from dangerous commercial traits, 
while on the other hand it is free to follow, without confusion 
or control, its special task or special aim. Like a voluntary 
religious organization, such schools " enjoy the immense 
advantages of freedom of association, of personal initiative, 
of individual growth." They are important beyond their 
number. 

VALUE OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS. — Self-support, per- 
sonal freedom and personal care, flexibility of organization, 
and prompt adjustments being the virtues of the private 
school, it will soon appear that the private school counts 
much more in some parts of the educational field than in others. 
It is not too much to say that in all elementary education, in 
comparison with the public school, the argument for the pri- 
vate school amounts to very little, and the tendency of modern 
educational evolution is all against it. In the Report of the 
United States Commissioner of Education for 19 10 it is stated 
93 per cent of all children attending school in the United 
States are attending elementary schools and that 92.6 per 
cent of them are in public schools. The same observation 
might be made of Germany or France. To find any con- 
siderable amount of private elementary work one must look 
to the more or less tolerated religious schools. But even in 
countries where this kind of school exists as a significant part 
of the public system of elementary education, it is more and 
more coming under government control. This is the only 
important type of private elementary school. Other motives 
for private elementary work produce little result. 

PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOLS. —A brief survey 
of the field of education will show that secondary education 
is the special home of the private school. Among private 
schools originated every form of what is now known as high- 
school work in America. A large fraction of it is still done 
by them, probably from a fifth to a quarter. Nearly the 
whole of secondary education in England up to 1902 was of 



236 Principles of Secondary Education 

the private-school type. Even in Germany and France, the 
secondary schools, though under strict government control, 
are class schools, receiving fees, and belonging to the bourgeoisie 
in type. 

In Denmark and Norway, in Sweden and Finland, the 
private schools are of special importance and influence, more 
particularly as regards secondary education. In all these 
countries the state leaving examination which is passed at 
or about the age of eighteen is the only portal to the university. 
Candidates are prepared for it either (i) in state schools, in 
municipal schools, and in recognized private schools, or (2) in 
schools which have not gained or perhaps have not sought 
recognition, in private courses, and by private tuition. In 
the latter cases they are called privatists, and are subjected 
to a somewhat severer test. 

These two leaving examinations are the medium by which 
the recognition of private schools is effected. If, in buildings 
and equipment, in curriculum, efficiency of staff, and salaries, 
a school reach a satisfactory standard, it is allowed to hold 
the leaving examination within its walls, just like a state 
school ; and its masters, in the presence and under the guidance 
of a government-appointed censor from outside, conduct the 
Diva voce part of the examination (a specially interesting and 
important feature in all these countries), whereas privatists 
have their examinations both written and oral conducted by 
an examination board who are strangers to the candidates. 
Such private recognized schools are regarded as helping to 
make up the national provision of secondary education; their 
statistics are found alongside those of the state schools; 
masters or mistresses from the one kind of school easily pass 
into service of the other — from the private school to the 
pubUc or (less frequently) from the pubHc to the private, — 
and not unfrequently a teacher may be found engaged in 
both kinds of schools at the same time. Teachers from a 
public school are as often as not found acting as government 



The Private Secondary School 237 

censors at the examinations in a private school; and just as 
often teachers in a private school act as government censors 
at a public school. Thus the two kinds of school are per- 
petually acting and reacting on one another, to the good of 
both; each tends to impart to the other its characteristic 
virtues and excellences; and the two, by varying methods, 
work harmoniously and effectively towards the same goal — 
are indeed, so far as it is desirable, welded into one. 

Even if in time more of our American work goes to the pub- 
lic high schools, still there are some legitimate demands for 
variety in secondary school life which various forms of private 
school must always be called upon to satisfy. Some things 
the public high schools would not do, if they could, or could 
not, if they would. Some of these demands will necessarily 
create private schools. And at any rate, looking at the matter 
from another angle, as long as there are private schools, for 
any reason, the larger part, the stronger part, and the best 
part of them will be secondary schools. 

Vocational Schools. — The needs of the adolescent are 
various to infinity. The possibilities of secondary work are 
therefore legion. They may be roughly classed as vital, i.e. 
concerned with the development of personality, or vocational, 
i.e. concerned with the conservation of that personaHty to its 
life work. Of these, to the children, the most conscious, the 
most imperative, the most educating are the vocational pre- 
occupations. But these have been, however, for several 
generations in our public schools strangely misunderstood, 
misappreciated, and neglected. Children have been obliged 
to seek their vocational training in America out of school. 
The effect is naturally the well-known early departure of 
American children from schools of the state. Only 5 per cent 
of the school population is reported to the Commissioner in 
1909-1910, as attending public high schools. 

Now private vocational schools not so reported have made 
up for a large amount of this neglected work. For example. 



238 Principles of Secondary Education 

the " business colleges " and schools have accomplished much 
good vocational work. Generally they have been private 
ventures, originating spontaneously out of the pressing need. 
Most of these are still of this sort. But there are beginning 
to be private endowed schools which promise still more in the 
future. And the college and university courses of this sort 
must soon be reckoned with. Other occupations are repre- 
sented in the community by private schools. The schools of 
music and other arts, whose names fill up the educational 
directories of our cities, are mainly such. They originate in the 
demands of the locality and are private ventures, though there 
are some with private endowments, and some are affiliated 
with colleges and schools with endowments not under govern- 
ment control. They are exceedingly numerous and well 
attended. Handicrafts are taught in this way in an increas- 
ing number of schools, e.g. schools of telegraphy, dressmaking, 
cooking, pharmacy, and schools with a more comprehensive 
sweep like " mothercraft " and " philanthropy." There are 
advanced schools, under private management, but growing in 
publicity. We find the vocational trade schools and manual 
training schools of a general type, originating in private en- 
dowment and charging fees, but of great public power and 
value. We find great schools connected with special indus- 
tries. We find trade schools connected with churches. The 
whole field of secondary training is filled with vocational 
private schools, setting an example to the public schools, 
nowadays gravitating themselves toward the public school 
system, but to be reckoned distinctly as part of the creditable 
result of the American individuality in education which would 
be seriously missed, if lost in the future, and which is embodied 
in private schools. 

Among the vocational occupations of secondary schools is 
preparation of candidates for entrance not directly into the 
markets of life but into higher institutions of learning. In 
this class one might reckon candidates for government service 



The Private Secondary School 239 

and other occupations protected by examination or certifica- 
tion. No public school system can cover this ground com- 
pletely. Army, navy, civil service, professional and technical 
schools, scientific work, have so many varying needs as to 
create a large body to give private preparation. Special 
dexterities imply special schooling. Hence the need here 
of private schools. 

Preparatory Schools. — A most significant group of schools 
in America, called " preparatory schools," or " fitting schools," 
has originated in the need of previous preparation for the 
college and universities, until recently themselves private 
schools. These schools have many special intellectual and 
social ideals; but this work, though actually, for historical 
reasons, rather specially linguistic and theoretical, has been 
accepted as representing several essential requirements for 
secondary culture. They have thus enjoyed a great prestige ; 
and have been used to determine the course of public as well 
as private secondary education. They have been discussed 
and standardized by committees and other bodies appointed 
for this purpose, and doubtless exercise a great and whole- 
some influence over American education. 

The participation of the public high schools developed in 
the last fifty years in the work of the preparatory or fitting 
schools of America has been of great service to education in 
the standardization of college requirements, and in the move 
for uniformity as against the somewhat capricious and con- 
fused diversity of different college demands. Private and 
pubUc schools have worked side by side, and the massive 
power of the pubhc school has made itself felt. In the im- 
mediate future public schools may be even more useful in a 
similar way ; speaking in the name of the general public, they 
can assure the colleges and universities, as private schools 
cannot, that they may now safely admit to their work, with- 
out too much distinction among subjects prepared in school, 
any person of suitable intellectual stature and competency. 



240 Principles of Secondary Education 

But great as are the hopes for the pubHc school, nevertheless, 
as far as special preparation demanded by higher institutions 
is concerned, this will probably in the end remain a factor 
most stimulating chiefly to the creation of appropriate private 
schools, as it is now a leading interest among them. 

Another form of usefulness of the preparatory schools has 
been collateral among the groups of secondary schools in 
general. Not only is their work in their own task a significant 
part of the sum total of secondary education; but they have 
also influenced the theory and practice of all other secondary 
schools about them. This influence counts among the services 
of private schools to the country. Even where the public 
high schools have outdone their models, the private schools 
have after all many times set the fashion. 

Military Schools. — Another special form of training 
deserves mention by itself, among the activities of private 
schools. In Europe the educational effects of universal 
military service have often been favorably commented upon. 
Even where, however, this service is universal and compul- 
sory, there are special schools for vocational training of officers. 
In England, with certain brilliant exceptions, this work is 
left to volunteer effort. In America we have always had 
West Point and Annapolis, our only special schools to look 
up to for models and leadership. But, with some exceptions 
in the matter of drill and organization, the private schools in 
this country have taken over this matter entirely. The 
military schools of this country are private schools. Like 
all private schools they vary in efficiency; but the best of 
them show the great effects of a vocational ideal of a high 
code pursued with devotion. It is maintained in a recent 
article that the military situation in the United States is 
distinctly benefited by these military schools. Whether 
this belief be justified or not, the effects of their training on 
the schools and pupils are justly valued. The only criticism 
offered against them has been their tendency, owing to the 



The Private Secondary School 241 

superior efficiency of their moral training, to collect difficult 
cases in them, a criticism which has been made also of board- 
ing schools, small colleges, and all private schools. 

Denominational Schools. — The forms of private school 
hitherto considered contemplate school chiefly as preparation 
for life. This ideal, however, does not contain the whole 
case. There must be motives for the creation of schools in 
which vocational preparation plays a less prominent part. 
School years are branches of the Tree of Life not less than of 
the Tree of Knowledge, and in their ethical and spiritual 
experiences must be reflected ideals of great influence and 
worth. There is, for example, the religious hfe, very hard 
to provide for in governmental schools. Governments can 
in modern times recognize no religious body above another; 
the religious experience must be left to church and home. 
Here is a most powerful and apparently most permanent 
argument for the creation of private schools. All religious 
bodies feel this impulse. Of the private high schools dealt 
with in the Report of the Commissioners of Education, two 
thirds are conducted by religious bodies. A large part of the 
colleges and universities in the United States are either under 
direct control of some religious body or in close affiliation 
with it. The Catholic Education Association, for example, 
has on its roll 67 colleges, 16 seminaries, 980 schools. The 
Protestant denominations are not backward. There are even 
schools intended not merely to be non-sectarian, but carefully 
to diminish religion as life experience. All this is necessarily 
private school work. Modern government schools must ap- 
parently be secular. 

SOCIAL SELECTION. — But there are other life expe- 
riences than religion which governmental schools cannot for- 
mally recognize except as incidents and by-products of their 
history. Among them are the experiences, the ideals, the 
habits, associated with family life and the life of social groups. 
On the basis of social selection there are reared the most 



242 Principles of Secondary Education 

famous and perhaps the best of the private schools. The 
great English schools represent a social class. There are 
such schools, though closely under government supervision, 
in France and Germany, representing social distinction as 
well as religion. In America, while we recognize that our 
ideals, our ethics, even our manners and customs, must in the 
main be such as to fit us to belong to the great public family 
of which we are all proud, yet even here there are family 
groups of a more private character, which seek for separateness 
and distinction, especially in education. How valuable such 
things may be is a matter of some dispute. The doctrinaire 
democrat is apt to denounce such ambitions ; the parent face 
to face with the problem of his son's life is perhaps apt to 
overvalue exactly such distinctions as are cherished in private 
schools in some quarters. 

The discreet American need not take sides. He will re- 
member the federal constitution and the country's motto. 
At any rate, in the ebbing tide of family hfe, especially in the 
great cities, artificial family experiences seem now called for 
in school Hfe; in many situations public schools may and do 
efficiently perform this function, yet there are situations, un- 
solvable by schools open to all comers, which must be met by 
schools of private effort. Many schools, even in America, 
must exist which intend no more and profess nothing else 
than social and domestic privacy. These schools are not 
necessarily objectionable or of no service to the state. " We 
begin," says Burke, " our public affections in our famiHes." 
We certainly may begin them in such a private and secluded 
school, which is after all full of corporate spirit. There is 
no evidence that the academies of the eighteenth century or 
the boarding schools or private day schools of our own time 
have not produced their share of public servants. 

The scouting parties and forlorn hopes in the warfare of 
the Liberation of Humanity belong to private schools. It 
should be remembered that there is an ambiguity in the phrase 



The Private Secondary School 243 

" public service " ; it connotes both what is done for the public 
and what is done by it. The main question about any educa- 
tional institution therefore is not, who pays for it, but what it 
is worth to the common good. " Modem states," says the 
Commissioner, " shall certainly see to it that any citizen of 
any age who seeks instruction in any subject shall find in- 
struction provided for him, not necessarily at the public ex- 
pense, but made actually available for him by ways that are 
in his reach." In aiding citizens to forms of education not 
yet or not at all within reach of the pubHc school, the private 
school has its permanent meaning. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. How did private schools originate in Continental Europe? How 
in England ? How in America ? 

2. What justification of private schools is given by educational 
theorists, beginning with Quintilian ? 

3. To what extent were the academies, especially those of the first 
half of the nineteenth century, private schools ? 

4. Was there greater justification or need of private schools in the 
United States in the last half of the nineteenth century than there is in 
the twentieth ? 

5. What influence has the private school exerted on the development 
of the curriculum ? Of method ? 

6. What value does the private school have for the pupil ? 

7. What value does it have for society ? 

8. What are the chief defects or difficulties in the work of the private 
school ? 

9. Is there greater need for private secondary schools than for private 
elementary schools ? 

10. Is the government justified in demanding the right of inspection 
of private schools ? 

11. Is the government ever to be justified in demanding the suppression 
of private schools as a type ? 

12. Would the standardization of private schools on the same basis 
as that of public schools be an advantage ? 

13. Is there a greater justification for private schools in countries 
like Germany and France than there is in the United States ? In Eng- 
land than in the United States ? 



244 Principles of Secondary Education 

REFERENCES 

Brown, E. E. The Making of our Middle Schools. (Historical.) New 

York, 1903. 
BuRSTALL, S. A. Education of Girls in America, Chap. III. New York, 

1894. 
English High School for Girls. New York, 1907. 
Impressions of American Education, Chap. II. New York, 1909. 
Chancellor, W. E. Our Schools, Chap. X. Boston, 1904. 
Jackson, G. L. History of Secondary Curriculum since the Renaissance, 

in Johnson's High School Education, Chap. III. Applicable to 

private school curricula. (Historical.) New York, 191 2. 
Journal of Education, May, 1893. The number of private schools was 

estimated at from 10,000 to 20,000. 
Loos, J. Enzyklopddisches Handbuch der Erzienhungskunde, s.v. Pri- 

vatschulen. Also Landerziehungsheime. 
Lyttleton, Rev. Hon. Canon. How State Organizations will affect the 

Interest of existing Public and Private Schools. Paper at Conference 

of the Teachers' Guild, Oxford, 1893. 
Norwood, C, and Hope, A. H. Higher Education of Boys in England. 

(English Public Schools.) London, 1909. 
Phelps, W. L. Teaching in School and College, pp. 41-50, on Private 

School Teaching and Scholarship. New York, 191 2. 
Report of Commissioner of Education for 1911, Vol. II, Chap. XXXL 

Public and Private High Schools ; also each annual Report. 
Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, Vol. VII, 

p. 455. London, 1895. 
Sachs, J. The American Secondary School, Part II. New York, 

1912. 
Scott, R. P., and others. What is Secondary Education? Chap. XIX. 

London, 1899. 
The Private Schoolmaster. A monthly published in London. 
Thornton, J. S. Education in Northern Europe ; The State and the 

Private School. Educational Times, Vol. LVIII, pp. 482-483. 
Facts and Opinions from Public Men on Private Schools, 1 893-1 894. 

A paper compiled for the Private Schools Association. 
Public Schools and Private in the North of Europe. English Special 

Reports, Vol. XVII, 1907. 
TwiNG, C. F. History of Higher Education in America. New York, 

1906. 
U. S. Bureau of Education. Public and Private High Schools. Bulletin 

No. 22, 191 2. Washington. 



The Private Secoitdary School 245 

Watson, Foster. English Grammar Schools to 1660, p. 156 sqq. 
Cambridge, 1908. 

Beginnings of the Teaching of Modern Subjects in England. London, 
1909. 

Unlicensed Nonconformist Schoolmasters, 1662 onwards. Gentle- 
man's Magazine, September, 1902. 



CHAPTER VII 
PSYCHOLOGY AND HYGIENE OF ADOLESCENCE 

PHYSIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ADOLES- 
CENT PERIOD. — • The period of secondary education coin- 
cides very closely with the first half of that term of years 
between the ages 12 to 14 and maturity, which is known as the 
period of adolescence (Latin, adolescere, to grow up). The 
initial stage of adolescence, the period of puberty (Latin, 
puber, pubes, grown up) , is that stage of physical development 
at which an individual first becomes capable of begetting or 
bearing children, and this maturing of sex functions affords 
the essential and salient cue for the interpretation, not only 
of the physical but also of the mental and moral development 
of the entire adolescent period. Adolescence is, then, to be 
regarded as a period of marked and significant developmental 
growth — a growth both of body and of mind. 

Biologically, then, the individual becomes, during the 
period from puberty to maturity, capable of undertaking his 
part in the perpetuation of the race. So rapid and so far- 
reaching are the alterations effected in bodily structure and 
in mental traits that they may be fitly compared with those 
still more rapid and significant developmental phenomena 
observable during gestation and early infancy, so that it 
may be said, as Rousseau has phrased it, that " We are bom 
twice, once to exist and again to live; once as to species and 
again with regard to sex." ^ And it follows that it is quite 
impossible to understand the high school pupil or to elaborate 
any interpretative theory of adolescence save by reference 
to this fundamental underlying fact that adolescence is the 
period of life when sex functions mature. 

1 Emile, Book IV. 
246 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 247 

The onset of puberty varies in time. Chronologically, it 
is customary to assign the appearance of puberty to the 
twelfth or thirteenth year in girls and to the fourteenth year 
in boys. However, every extended investigation that has been 
conducted has shown that these are but average figures. Thus, 
some boys are pubescent as early as the tenth year, others not 
until as late as the eighteenth year (Table i).^ Analogous 
figures for the first time of the first appearance of puberty 
in girls (Table 2) ^ reveal much the same range of variabihty. 

TABLE I 

Variation in Pubescence or 4800 Boys in a New York 
High School (Crampton) 



Median Age 


Immature or 


Maturing or 


Mature or 


(Approx.) 


Prepubescent 


Pubescent 


POSTPUBESCENT 


12.75 


69% 


25% 


6% 


13-25 


55 


26 


18 


13-75 


41 


28 


31 


14-25 


26 


28 


46 


14-75 


16 


24 


60 


15.25 


9 


20 


70 


15-75 


5 


10 


85 


16.25 


2 


4 


93 


16.75 


I 


4 


95 


17-25 





2 


98 


17-75 








100 



^ See particularly the results published by C. W. Crampton, M.D. The In- 
fluence of Physiological Age on Scholarship, Psych. Clinic, i : 1907, 115-120; 
also Anatomical or Physiological Age versus Chronological Age, Fed. Sent., 15 : 
1908, 230-237, and Physiological Age — A Fundamental Principle, Amer. Phys. 
Educ. Rev., 13: 1908, 141-154, 214-227, 268-283, 345-358. 

^ A. Marro, La Puherie chez VHomme et cJiez la Femme. (Translated from the 
2d Italian edition), Paris, 1902. See especially p. 22. 



248 Principles of Secondary Education 









TABLE 2 














Date of Onset of Puberty in 261 Girls, observed by 


Marro 


Year . . 10 


II 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


IQ 


20 


21 


Number i 


6 


16 


34 


61 


54 


40 


29 


12 


4 


2 


2 



Variability is itself Characteristic of the Period. — The 

individual variability here revealed in the date of entrance 
into the adolescent period is a phenomenon that is equally 
evident in the other physical and mental changes of the 
period. That is to say, the range of differences between in- 
dividuals with respect to any trait is much greater during 
adolescence than during childhood. Indeed, so variable are 
many of the signs of adolescence as to render generalization 
about them either difficult or at least perplexing] when the 
individual pupil is under consideration. This accentuation 
of individual differences during the high school period has 
led to the conviction that the educational machinery of the 
secondary school should possess a reasonable amount of flexi- 
bility, that more heed must be given than in the elementary 
school to the needs of the individual pupil in curriculum, 
method, pace of work, and in similar matters. 

Physiological Age. — The variability just cited in the date 
of onset of puberty affords us the concept of " physio- 
logical age." A pupil's physiological age is determined by 
the stage of physiological development he has attained. We 
have already seen that his physiological age may or may not 
correspond with his chronological age. In a similar manner, 
a pupil's psychological age corresponds to the stage of mental 
development he has attained. Finally, his " pedagogical 
age " is given by his status or grade in the school system. 

The Concept of Retardation and Acceleration. — One of th^ 
most interesting problems raised by recent investigation 
relates to the correspondence or correlation between these 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 249 

several " ages." A pupil may, for example, exhibit either 
" retardation " or "acceleration " in any one of these ages when 
it is related to any other one of them. It has been common 
to speak of retardation when pedagogical age is behind chrono- 
logical age, but we may also find other forms of retardation — 
physiological, for instance, in the case of pupils who enter 
puberty after 15. 

Relation of Physiological Age to Success in High School. 
— The relation of physiological age to success or fail- 
ure in high school work has been investigated of late, 
though with somewhat conflicting results. Crampton ^ as- 
serts that in the high school the immature (prepubescent) 
boys at all ages exhibit many more instances of failure in 
school work than do the mature boys.^ The more recent 
work of Dr. W. L. Foster ^ shows that one third of the boys 
entering New York high schools are discharged during the 
first term, but that these discharges are reduced by from 7 
to II per cent when entering pupils are placed in sections or 
groups of like physiological age, based on degree of pubescence. 
The explanation offered by Foster is that the boys then find 
their school associations " pleasanter " and tend to stay in 
school for a longer time. 

Inspection of Foster's tables shows that, in a class of 295 
pupils sorted into eight groups by physiological age,* of 58 

^ Fed. Sem., 15 : 1908, 230-237. 

2 On the contrary, in the elementary grades in New York City, there are, 
according to the same investigator, in grades sc to ya, thousands of pupils who 
are physiologically mature, but who are deficient in scholarship. These boys 
are naturally poor scholars, who are kept in schools by the compulsory educa- 
tion laws and who find the school work particularly trying and irksome. 

2 Physiological Age as a Basis for the Classification of Pupils entering the 
High School, Psych. Clinic, 4 : 1910, 83-88. 

* The sorting was accomplished by making a direct examination of the degree 
of pubescence, but the author believes that the relation of pubescence and height 
is so close that a practical grouping could be made on the basis of height alone. 
However, the natural range of variation in height is so great and the amount of 
overlapping of heights in Foster's own groups was so great as to cast doubts 
upon the feasibility of so simple a procedure. 



250 Principles of Secondary Education 

discharges, 33 were in the four most mature groups; of 58 
failures, 40 were in the four most mature groups; while of 
179 promotions, 100 were in the four least mature groups. 
These results flatly contradict Crampton's generalization. 
All in all, more investigation is needed of the interrelationships 
of the several " ages," with special reference to the pupils 
entering the secondary school. 

Foster says distinctly: " It is quite certain that the boy of 
Class I (the most mature group) will never be first in scholar- 
ship." And for this he offers at least a partial explanation: 
" Many of them were delayed in their progress at school or 
by circumstances at home. Going to work is usually out of 
the question for a small boy, and in social affairs and in athletics 
he is not at all successful. The influences that tempt the big 
fellow to neglect school duties do not have the same force 
against the smaller boy." Again, some of the big boys en- 
ter the high school a year or more after graduation from the 
elementary school; others of them are undoubtedly innately 
dull — a statement that raises the query whether the apparent 
good that resulted from the segregation may not have been 
due to a grouping of psychological age after all. 

Aside from these bodily changes directly connected with 
the maturing of sex, the most marked physical sign of early 
adolescence is the augmented rate of bodily growth. 

Growth in Height and Weight. — Measurements of the 
height of some 88,000 American school children and of 
the weight of nearly the same number have afforded the 
valuable statistics of growth reproduced in Tables 3 and 4.^ 

1 These norms of stature have been calculated by Boas {Report Commissioner 
of Educ, 1896-7, ii, 1541-1599) from studies by various investigators of school 
children in Boston, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Toronto, and Oakland, Cal. The 
same averages converted into inches are published by F. Burk (Amer. Jour, of 
Psych., 9 : 1897-8, 253), from whose article the norms of weight calculated for 
Boston, St. Louis, and Milwaukee children have been taken. Curves showing 
the distribution by percentiles of the height and weight of children of both 
sexes for the ages 4 to 18 have been issued by F. W. Smedley (Rept. Dept. Child 
Study, Chicago, No. 3), and are reproduced in part by Whipple (Manual of 
Mental Tests, 2d. ed.). 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 251 



TABLE 3 

Average Stature of American Children, in Centimeters 



Age 

Boys 

Girls 

Age 

Boys 

Girls 



5-5 


6.5 


7-5 


8.5 


9.5 


10.5 


105.90 


111.58 


116.83 


122.04 


126.91 


131.78 


104.88 


110.08 


116.08 


121. 21 


126.14 


131.27 


12.5 


13-5 


14.5 


15.5 


16.5 


17-5 


140.74 


146.00 


152.39 


159-72 


164.90 


168.91 


142.52 


148.69 


153.50 


156.50 


158.03 


159-14 



11-5 
136.20 
136.62 

18.5 
171.07 



TABLE 4 
Average Weight of American Children, in Kilograms 



Age 
Boys 
Girls . 

Age 

Boys . 
Girls . 


. 6.5 
. 20.50 
. 19.69 

• 15-5 
. 48.72 
. 48.40 


7.5 
22.45 
21.64 

16.5 

54.88 

50.94 


8.5 
24.72 
23.81 

17.5 


9-5 
27-03 
26.03 


10.5 

29.66 

28.53 


11-5 
32.07 

31-52 


12.5 
34.88 
35.70 


13.5 
38.46 
40.23 


14.5 
43-18 

44-59 


52.34 





It M^ill be seen that boys are slightly taller and heavier than 
girls of the same age during childhood and up to just before 
the onset of puberty, w^hereas girls are taller than boys be- 
tween the ages 11. 5 and 14.5 and heavier than boys between 
the ages 12.5 and 14.5. This crossing of the curves of growth 
of the two sexes is due to the fact that the acceleration of 
growth which ushers in adolescence comes earlier in girls 
than in boys. Boys, however, overtake girls, once they reach 
their own period of acceleration, and, since they continue to 
grow at an accelerated rate for a longer period, come ulti- 
mately to exceed girls by a greater amount than in childhood. 
A similar phenomenon appears in other anthropometric 
measurements, e.g. that of vital capacity-, and of strength of 



252 Principles of Secondary Education 

grip, though in these other cases the accelerated growth in 
girls does not happen to be sufficient to bring about an actual 
crossing of the curves of the two sexes. 

The period of most rapid growth does not, as has sometimes 
been said, take place just before puberty, for when pupils 
are divided into groups according to degree of physiological 
maturity, it is found that prepubescents grow slowly in height, 
weight, and strength. On the contrary, the year of accelerated 
growth in all these respects is the first year of postpubescence, 
regardless of its chronological relations.^ 

Growth and Health. — While it is true that for some 
individuals, more especially for some girls, the pubertal period 
is attended with ill health and fragile physique, the evidence 
of vital statistics shows clearly that these cases are exceptions 
to the rule. Hartwell's study of the death rate for the city 
of Boston showed that the period of pubertal change is the 
period of lowest death rate, while the commission headed by 
Axel Key,^ that examined 15,000 boys and 3000 girls in 
Swedish schools, found that capacity to resist chronic diseases 
was highest when growth was most rapid, and that the seven- 
teenth year was the most healthy, the thirteenth and eight- 
eenth relatively sickly. The indications are, therefore, that 
early adolescence is a period of strong vitality. 

Growth by Parts. — When we examine the growth of the 
different organs and structures of the body, we find that 
they participate to a very unequal extent in the rapid growth 
of adolescence. Moreover, the periods of most rapid growth, 
the nascent periods, of different organs do not coincide. And 
finally, organs differ in the duration of their periods of growth. 
Instances of these principles are given below, and many more 
might be adduced to show that growth is "by parts," not 

^ See Crampton, Psych. Clinic, i : 1907, 115-120. 

2 This report is available, in German, in L. Burgerstein's Schulhygienische 
Untersuchungen. Hamburg, 1889. See also F. Burk, Growth of Children in 
Height and Weight, Amer. J. of Psych., 9 : 1897-1898, 253 ff., esp. 286-295. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 253 

symmetrical and proportionate increase in size of the body- 
as a whole. It is tempting, and doubtless justifiable, to sup- 
pose that the central nervous system likewise matures un- 
evenly and that we have a corresponding growth by parts in 
mental life, with nascent periods for specific traits and ca- 
pacities. 

Growth of the Bones. — The bones grow longer and 
thicker and undergo important changes in their constitution, 
particularly noticeable in the completion of the process of 
ossification,^ e.g. in the bones of the skull, and in the joining 
of the epiphyses of numerous important bones, e.g. the hu- 
merus, femur, tibia, scapula. 

The bone growth of puberty is not simple enlargement, 
but, in many instances, involves alterations in shape and pro- 
portions. Thus, chest growth is chiefly in a lateral direction; 
growth in height is largely due to lengthening of the thigh 
bones; the pelvis, at least in girls, is greatly modified in shape; 
in the head, the face lengthens by as much as an inch; the 
interocular distance increases as the face broadens ; the sec- 
ond dentition is completed; the lower jaw becomes heavier, 
the nose longer and more prominent, while the nasion fills in. 
These changes combine with changes in muscular develop- 
ment to bring about decided changes in facial expression. 

Hygiene of Bone Growth. — Apparently, the system de- 
mands a special supply of mineral matter, particularly of 
lime, at this time. This demand is usually held to account 
for the " lime-hunger " of pupils who eat chalk, and even plas- 
ter of Paris or mortar. Too rapid growth of the bones is also 
held to account for '' growing pains," either because the ep- 
iphyses, or centers of growth in the bones, become inflamed, or 

^ It has been proposed to use this phenomenon as a basis for the classification 
of children into different physiological ages. The work thus far done, however, 
applies primarily to infancy and childhood up to the twelfth year. For X-ray 
photographs of the progressive ossification of the small bones of the wrist, 
see T. M. Rotch, M.D., Roentgen Ray Methods Applied to the Grading of 
Early Life, Proc. 4th Cong. Amer. School Hyg. Assoc, 1910, pp. 184-208. 



254 Principles of Seco7idary Education 

because the bones grow faster than the muscles and thus cause 
abnormal tension and perhaps interference with the blood 
supply. Since bone growth is affected by posture and mus- 
cular strains as well as by nutritive supply, it follows, ac- 
cording to HalV that " too high pillows, sleeping in one 
position, ill-adjusted seats at school or on the bicycle, lacing, 
occupations that strain or require unnatural postures, are 
especially to be avoided at this age." 

Growth of the Muscles. — The muscles participate exten- 
sively in the rapid growth of puberty ; thus, at 8 years 
they form 27.2 per cent of the total body weight, but at 15 
years, 32.6 per cent, and at 16 years, 44.2 per cent. The 
clumsiness so characteristic of adolescent boys is perhaps 
due in part to inequalities of muscle growth, either because 
the muscles grow faster than the bones to which they are 
attached or because the musculature develops at an unequal 
rate in its various parts. 

Growth of Heart and Arteries. — The heart muscles in- 
crease in size and in number of contractile fibers, so that 
the volume of this organ is radically increased in proportion 
to the lumen of the arteries through which it forces the blood 
— the ratio of heart to arteries being 25 : 20 at birth, but 
140 : 50 at puberty and 290: 61 at full maturity, according to 
the measurements of Landois. The effect of this growth of 
the heart is in all probability to produce a heightening of 
blood pressure at puberty, and there is evidence that the 
earlier and more decided this growth, the earlier, stronger, 
and more complete is the development of puberty. 

These changes in arterial pressure, together with changes 
in the specific gravity of the blood (at least in girls) and the 
slight rise in bodily temperature (about 0.5° F.), are all tokens 
of the extension of the circulatory system to supply new struc- 
tures and new bodily functions, of the need of irrigating an 
increased musculature, and of the increase of metaboUsm 

^ Adolescence, Vol. I, p. 82. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 255 

(assimilation and dissimilation of tissue) connected with the 
general physiological " stir-up " of the period. 

Circulatory Disturbances. — Like all the other phenomena 
of adolescent growth, there is here, too, a noticeably in- 
creased individual variation, while temporary functional dis- 
turbances are not at all uncommon. Sudden and unac- 
countable fluctuation in the rate of the pulse, palpitation 
of the heart, and- frequent or habitual headaches are often 
reported during pubertal growth. The anemia and chlorosis 
(green sickness) of adolescent girls are other all too charac- 
teristic functional disturbances of adolescence. Thus, Key 
found habitual headache in 13.5 per cent of boys and 36.1 
per cent of girls and symptoms of chlorosis in 12.7 per cent 
of boys and 35.5 per cent of girls. Somewhat smaller per- 
centages are reported by Hertel from the examination of 
children 11 to 14 years old at Copenhagen. 

Growth of the Lungs. — Though the growth of the heart 
tends to lessen the chest capacity, this reduction is more 
than compensated for by the enlargement of the thoracic 
cavity already mentioned. By means of the spirometer, 
measurements may be taken of the " breathing capacity," ^ 
■ — also termed the " differential capacity " or the " vital capac- 
ity," — i.e. the maximal amount of air that can be exhaled 
after a maximal inhalation. This capacity, taken by itself, 
or expressed in its relation to bodily weight (the " vital in- 
dex "), furnishes a valuable index of general vitality. Meas- 
urements of school children show that the vital capacity of 
girls increases rapidly from 12 to 14, thence slowly until 20, 
while that of boys increases rapidly from 14 to about 19.5 
years.^ 

Training for Vital Capacity. — Vital capacity, perhaps 
more than any other physical capacity, may be greatly in- 

^ When the estimated air remaining in the lungs, the "residual air," is added, 
the total gives the "lung capacity." 

2 See G. M. Whipple, Manual of Mental and Physical Tests, 1914, Test 5. 



256 Principles of Secondary Education 

creased by suitable exercise and training. Since, then, full 
development of chest and lung is so obviously desirable (as 
an adjunct in endurance under effort, in resistance to disease, 
etc.), the physical training work in every secondary school 
should be so arranged as to secure maximal chest develop- 
ment and habitual good bodily posture. 

Changes in the Voice. — Just as the cries, clucks, chirps, 
and all the other various equivalents of voice found in animals 
may be observed to alter at the mating season, or perhaps to 
be heard only then, so, too, alteration in voice is one of the 
most obvious and characteristic symptoms of the pubertal 
period. 

In boys the growth of the larynx, outwardly visible in the 
increased prominence of the Adam's apple, with the correla- 
tive elongation of the vocal cords to about double their former 
length, produces a drop in the pitch of the voice of approxi- 
mately an octave. In girls a similar, but less marked, change 
may be noted : the drop in pitch is slight, but the change to a 
richer and fuller timbre is unmistakable. 

Period oj Mutation. — In boys this process of " muta- 
tion," as it is termed, may begin as early as 12, or not for 
three or four years later. As it ordinarily takes about two 
years for the voice to become established in the lower register, 
some boys may sing treble even up to the age of 19. During 
mutation the voice is often rough and hoarse and char- 
acterized by the well-known " breaks " in pitch. Hall 
thinks that, with the structural alteration of the vocal 
organs, there appears " a new vocal consciousness," and 
that pubescent boys delight to experiment with their voice, 
especially " to yell and indulge in vocal gymnastics of a 
drastic kind." 

Hygiene and Training of the Voice. — The desirability 
of using the voice in singing during its mutation has been a 
matter of debate among teachers of vocal music. Paulsen 
found that 75 per cent of adolescent boys could not control 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 257 

the voice during mutation, but MacKenzie ^ examined 500 
choir boys 14 to 18 years old and found the voice really 
'' cracked " in only 17 per cent. The best opinion appears 
to coincide with the conclusion of Dr. MacKenzie that sing- 
ing may be continued if due care is exercised, especially in 
avoiding very high or very low registers. 

At any rate, a reasonable amount of voice culture seems 
to be needed in the secondary school to secure a satisfactory 
speaking voice. Too often the voice settles into an undesirable 
pitch and color ; it becomes nasal, throaty, coarse, or in girls 
shrill and grating, and enunciation is defective. Teachers 
should set a persistent good example and encourage their 
pupils to think how they sound as well as how they look! 

Growth of the Brain. — The brain, unlike most of the 
bodily organs, does not increase much in weight at adolescence. 
However, the manifold alterations and augmentations in 
psychic life — the new instincts, feelings, ideals, motives, 
and the general ripening of intellectual grasp that make up 
the psychological picture of adolescence — point unmistakably 
to corresponding alterations in brain activity. These altera- 
tions may be in part the functional maturing of cells and 
tracts hitherto dormant, and in part the extension and rami- 
fication of the fiber processes of cells already mature, par- 
ticularly in the " higher " association areas of the cortex. The 
one development would account for the awakening of new 
instinctive tendencies, the other for the enriching and elabora- 
tion of mentality in general. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA OF ADOLES- 
CENCE.^ — The most prominent instinctive responses of 

^ Morell MacKenzie, M.D., The Hygiene of the Vocal Organs. London, 1886, 
p. 130. 

2 Method of Studying Adolescence. — A word may be said concerning 
the method of studying the psychology of adolescence. Our present knowledge 
of this field is due almost entirely to the labors of Stanley Hall, who, with the aid 
of his confreres and graduate students at Clark University, has collected thou- 
sands of observations by the circulation of series of questions. The questionary, 
s 



258 Principles of Secondary Education 

childhood, fearing, feeding, fighting, and the like, make for 
self-preservation. The child naturally " looks out for num- 
ber one "; his conduct is ego-centric; he is, from an adult 
point of view, intrinsically selfish. But to Nature the indi- 
vidual counts for little, the race for much. Self-preservation 
may be the " first law of human nature," but species-preserva- 
tion is the first law of Nature. 

We have seen how, during puberty, the body becomes 
physically prepared for participation in this species-preserva- 
tion. We must now see how, during the same period, mental 
reconstruction yields a new attitude toward life — an attitude 
which is, in large measure, clearly directed to the same general 
end as the physical reconstruction. 

Primary and Secondary Sex Characters. — The biolo- 
gist distinguishes between structures or traits that are directly 
and immediately concerned in the process of reproduction 
and other structures or traits that are merely accessory or 
assisting ; the former are termed primary, the latter secondary 
sexual characters. Thus, the odor or color of a flower, for 
example, is a secondary character that serves to attract in- 
sects and brings about fertilization by pollen grains (the pri- 
mary sex characters). 

Analogously, the mental processes correlated with the 
development of sex during adolescence may be regarded as 
including not only those that are primary to sex, like sex 
love and impulses toward sexual activity {libido, in the scien- 

or questionnaire, is, as its name implies, a list of questions, usually printed, to 
which answers are sought from a considerable number — say, several hundred 
— of persons. The replies, or "returns," are then collated, and from them in- 
ferences are drawn. The method has the advantage of numbers — 200 expe- 
riences afford a truer picture of human nature than do two or half a dozen — 
but it has defects ; 200 poor answers by writers incapable of reliable report, or 
seeking to please the questioner, or unconsciously suggested by the phrasing 
of his questions — 200 such answers are inferior to half a dozen reliable observa- 
tions. It is not improbable that some of the generalizations now current about 
the psychic hfe of adolescents are unwarranted and will be replaced in time as 
more critical and exact information becomes available. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 259 

tific terminology), but also a host of other processes that are 
secondarily or indirectly associated with the emergence of 
the sex-consciousness. 

Ramifications of the Sex Instinct in Mental Life. — 
Thus, interest in adornment, " sho wing-off," widening con- 
sciousness of social relations, altruistic conduct, aesthetic 
appreciation, religious conversion, and desire for travel, to 
cite instances, represent varied and characteristic mental 
experiences of adolescence, all of which may be traced back 
to sex, in the widest meaning of that term. Not, of course, 
that the sex instinct is alone responsible for these manifesta- 
tions, or that the adolescent is even conscious of a connection 
between them and his sex life, but only that the chief driving 
agency behind them is, after all, the sex instinct. To use the 
fruitful metaphor of Stanley Hall, we may think of these 
secondary or indirect manifestations as " long-circuitings " or 
" irradiations " of the sex instinct, and the problem of the 
psychology of adolescence becomes primarily that of catalogu- 
ing and describing them. Or, to use the terminology of the 
followers of the Vienna physician, Freud, — who has given 
us an elaborate account of the genesis and development, 
particularly in aberrant ways, of these sex manifestations, — 
we may speak of these remoter manifestations as '' sublima- 
tions " of the sex impulse. 

Sensory Development. — The uncertainty in data and 
inferences based on the questionary method is well illustrated 
in the statements commonly made as to the effect of adoles- 
cence upon sensory development. On the one hand, labora- 
tory experiments do not indicate any marked or widespread 
" sharpening of the senses " during the period.^ The best 
data obtainable show, for instance, that auditory acuity 
reaches its maximum at 12 years; that visual acuity tends 
all too often to deteriorate as a consequence of myopia, 
hyperopia, and astigmatism ; that the discrimination of two 
^ For detailed statements, see Whipple, op. cit., Chap. VI. 



26o Principles of Secondary Education 

points on the skin (the aesthesiometric index) is poorer at 
maturity than at childhood. Sensitivity to pain decreases up 
to 1 8 or 19 years, with irregularities at puberty. Pitch dis- 
crimination apparently does not improve after the loth year, 
nor the discrimination of lifted weights after the 13th year. 

On the other hand, the frequently quoted results of Lan- 
caster's questionary ^ are taken by many writers to mean 
that the senses grow keener during adolescence. But when a 
girl of 17 testifies that she now hears the chimes three miles 
away that she never heard as a child, when another asserts 
that her eyesight was keenest at 13, as tested by seeing a 
steeple in the distance, and another that all nature took on a 
" new aspect of beauty " at this period, and when Hall speaks 
of " a new dermal consciousness," etc., it is evident enough 
that the adolescent modification is , central, not peripheral. 
What is changed is not the cochlea or the retina, but atten- 
tion, interest, feeling, and emotion. In short, adolescence 
affects the attitude toward sensation, not sensation itself. 

ISew Dermal Consciousness. — Take, in illustration, the "new 
dermal consciousness " just mentioned. The sweat glands 
and sebaceous glands apparently become more active dur- 
ing puberty. The skin is more oily. Concern as to per- 
sonal appearance may impel the girl to an altered regimen 
of bathing, to the use of cosmetics. Pimples and eruptions, 
characteristic of the period, solicit attention. Some pur- 
posely abrade the skin; others try to pull hair from the eye- 
brows, cheeks, and other parts of the body, despite the pain. 
Primitive people indulge in tattooing at this time. Then 
appear strong likes and dislikes for covering parts of the 
body, arms, neck, hands, head, etc., with clothing. Contact 
with the skin of others, as in hand-shaking, stroking, caressing, 
kissing, may be sought after and enjoyed, or strongly disliked 
and shunned. All this elaboration of the " skin conscious- 

1 E. G. Lancaster, The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence. Pcd. 
Sem., 6: July, 1897, 61-128, esp. p. 79. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 261 

ness " is centrally, not peripherally, determined; it is, in 
reality, closely related to the ripening of sex functions, as 
Freud ^ has shown. Hall believes that the leading of a rugged 
life, with abundant skin stimulation, even with plenty of pain 
stimuli, is desirable to keep attention from being focalized 
on sex. 

New Smell and Taste Interests. — Questionary returns 
show a similar emergence of new interests in odors. Girls 
develop fondness for perfumed soaps, sachet powder, smell- 
ing bottles, etc. Likes and dislikes for people are frequently 
reported to be based upon real or fancied odors; friendships 
are broken on account of a bad breath, and so on. 

Taste and smell, in combination, give us flavor, and re- 
action to flavor determines likes and dislikes for various 
foods. Data from questionary returns indicate both a widen- 
ing of the range and a greater caprice of appetite during early 
adolescence. Many articles of food are now used for the 
first time, and few new dishes are " acquired " after this period. 
Naturally, extreme likes and dislikes are to be curbed, espe- 
cially when they tend to undermine health, e.g. overindulgence 
in tea, coffee, condiments, and sweets. Adolescents not in- 
frequently become faddists, and pursue certain diets, e.g. 
vegetarianism, rehgiously for a time. Hall is of the opinion 
that this widening range of appetite at adolescence may be a 
recapitulation of the age in primitive peoples when youth 
cut loose from parental support and began an independent 
life of food getting, but this surmise is as questionable as any 
other that hinges upon acceptance of the doctrine of psychic 
recapitulation. 

New Aural Interests. — With the change of voice at 
adolescence, there is, as we have noted, a " new vocal con- 
sciousness." Likewise, there appears an undeniable aug- 

1 S. Freud, Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory. {Nervous and Men- 
tal Disease Monograph Scries, No 7), New York, 1910, especially the third 
essay : "The Transformation of Puberty." 



262 Principles of Secondary Education 

mentation of interest in music — both intellectually in growth 
of real musical appreciation and understanding of musical 
forms, and emotionally in delight in music. Of 556 adoles- 
cents who answered Lancaster's questionary, 464 testified to 
an increased '' love of music."' The evidence for this nascent 
period is fairly clear, and it appears to reach its climax at 
the 15th year. At this time, many boys and girls, who are 
in reality unmusical, pass through a period of transient de- 
votion to music, purchase instruments, and begin to " take 
lessons," especially on stringed instruments (banjo, mandolin, 
and guitar). Those who have real talent make surprising 
progress at this time ; the others soon lose their zeal. 

Here, again, and in the similarly augmented interest in 
color, displayed in dress, in painting lessons, etc., we have an 
example of the enrichment of sensory life by the indirect 
ramification of sex instinct. The real adolescent growth is 
not in sensitivity and sense discrimination, in the strict 
psychological sense, but in the emotional background, and 
the appeal that stimulation of skin, tongue, nose, ear, and 
eye makes to the strong undercurrent of life interests of the 
period. Pedagogically, the main problem is the utilization 
of this " awakening " for the higher processes of mental 
development, particularly the turning of these biologically 
determined impulses toward artistic and creative effort of a 
worthy kind. 

The Sex Instinct. — The most fundamental psychic phe- 
nomena of adolescence is, however, not in the sphere of 
sensation, or the emotional reaction to sense-impressions, but 
rather in the sphere of instinct. The sex instinct has been 
commonly regarded as a typical latent or delayed racial 
tendency, as practically totally lacking in childhood and 
appearing relatively abruptly at puberty. In a way this is 
true. The young child naturally exhibits little physical 
self-consciousness, little instinctive concealment of sex shame, 
whereas, at puberty, there appear bashfulness, coyness, 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 263 

'* showing off," strong personal interest in individuals of the 
opposite sex, and a flood of vague impulses and emotional 
reactions to sexual stimuli. Some authorities go so far as to 
assert that for some years at this time fully nine tenths of 
the mental processes of adolescents center in sex and its 
functions — if we give to the term a broad interpretation. 

On the other hand, however, the work of Freud and his 
followers has laid emphatic stress upon the principle that the 
remoter beginnings of the sexual life date far back into child- 
hood and even into infancy, so that these pubertal phenomena 
are transformations or realignments of earlier instinctive 
tendencies rather than new and hitherto-absent tendencies.^ 

Sex Charms and Fetishes. — In the emergence during 
puberty, and the subsequent development, of attraction for 
the opposite sex, there is exhibited an interesting and char- 
acteristic example of that " long-circuiting " or indirect rami- 
fication of the instinct to which we have already alluded. It 
is this : - sexual attraction or repugnance tends to be aroused 
less by the primary sexual characteristics than by secondary 
or remoter characteristics. Likes and dislikes, in other 
words, are based upon seemingly trivial details of personality, 
e.g. color of eyes or hair, manner of walking, quality of voice, 
contour of neck, and so on — all traits which do not, in the 
last resort, affect in one way or another the value of their 
possessor, considered biologically as a contributor to the 
perpetuation of the species, yet traits which constitute the 
basic material of romantic love. 

Where, as is often the case, some one trait or combination 
of traits becomes the focus of interest and admiration, or, as 
it is phrased, gains '' special erogenic power," to the exclusion 
of other traits and qualities, we term it a sex fetish. Inves- 
tigators have collected and classified these fetishes by asking 
young men and women what particular traits they regarded 
as essential in determining Hkes or dislikes for persons of the 
1 See Freud, op. cit. 



264 Principles of Secondary Education 

opposite sex.^ The results are most striking. Bodily traits 
are cited in the order: eyes, hair, stature, feet, brows, com- 
plexion, cheeks, throat, ears, chin, hands, neck, nose, etc. 
Movements and actions are equally prolific sources of sex 
fetishes, e.g. the voice, mode of laughing, carriage, gait, 
gesture, pose of head, etc. Attraction may also center in 
dress or personal adornment — white linen, furs, collars, 
glasses, ribbons, sashes, etc. 

Equally intense aversions may reside in specific traits, 
e.g. prominent or deep-set eyes, full neck, ears that stand out, 
eyebrows that meet, large feet, pimples, red hair, gigghng, 
swaggering, flashy neckties, untidy hnen, colored handker- 
chiefs, or resemblance to certain animals — monkey, dog, 
parrot, pig, peacock, etc. 

In all the instances of attraction, these traits become charms 
dissociated from sex centers (or perhaps rather symbolic of 
them) and objects of direct attraction. This focalization of 
the sex attraction upon specific traits, often in themselves 
trivial, varies in individual adolescents, both in quality and 
in degree, but the tendency is decided and clearly enough 
exhibited by most adolescents, especially in the early portion 
of the period. As maturity approaches they may suffer 
modification and even reversal, so that the young boy who wor- 
ships golden hair in his teens may, after all, succumb to a 
complex of other quahties in a pronounced brunette. 

The Development of Love. — The appearance of these 
sex charms and fetishes is but one phase of the development 
of the sentiment of love. Not even this romantic and poetic 
phase of human nature has escaped the analysis of the man 
of science, and we have several accounts, primarily based upon 
the questionary method, of the normal development of love. 
Bell,^for example, distinguishes five fairly representative stages. 

1 Hall, Adolescence, II, 113 ff. 

2 Sanford Bell, A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the 
Sexes. Amer. Jour, of Psych., 13 : July, 1902, 325-354. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 265 

(i) The '' love " of childhood, of boys and girls under the 
age of 8, — a sort of Platonic, sexless, transparent childhood 
attraction, characterized by fondness for one another's com- 
pany, exchanging keepsakes, etc. These attractions are 
commonly transitory and free from danger if not carried too 
far. 

(2) Juvenile love, or " liking," during the years 8 to 12, is 
more secretive and self-conscious. This is the stage of motto 
candy, and valentines, and such behavior as Whittier has 
wrought into his poem " In School-Days." Teachers some- 
times successfully utilize these juvenile attractions as an in- 
centive for better work and conduct in the schoolroom 

(3) From 8 to 13, or later, there may be displayed a psy- 
chologically interesting stage in which affection is exhibited 
for older persons. Though sometimes abnormally strong, 
and then a perverted and perhaps dangerous development, 
this tendency is to be looked upon in the main as natural and 
not unproductive of good, especially for the younger party. 
Very common in this connection is the sentimental affection 
developed by boys in the grades or early high school years 
for women teachers — an affection which may exert a power- 
ful determination upon the ideals, incentives, and conduct of 
these pupils. The fact that this attraction for older persons 
may focus upon an individual of the same sex (and not mere 
liking, but actual passionate love) lends countenance to 
Hall's suggestion that the root of the sentiment may be an 
admiration for maturity itself. Because most schoolboys 
are confronted with women teachers, the attraction happens, 
for them, to be often hetero-sexual. Some observers believe 
that a rough rule may be laid down to the effect that the sum 
of the ages of the two persons remains approximately con- 
stant, i.e. the 5^ounger the one party, the older the other. 
This stage shows, at least, how fundamental and how wide 
in scope are the sentiments and impulses of the period. 

(4) A fourth stage, assigned to the beginning of puberty, 



266 Principles of Secondary Education 

seems to the writer less cleariy manifested. In it, it is as- 
serted, there is a temporary drawing apart of the sexes, as 
modesty and sex reserve develop, and the interests of boys 
and girls tend to diverge. Boys want to assert their man- 
hood and are ashamed of the inexplicable weaknesses betrayed 
in their juvenile loves. 

(5) In the final stage conscious sex love slowly emerges, 
gradually taking on fuller richness and meaning as physical 
and mental maturity is attained. 

Instruction in Sex Hygiene. — Sex hygiene may be 
regarded as primarily concerned with securing a normal and 
wholesome development of the sex instinct, though the field 
that it opens for discussion presents physiological, ethical, 
and sociological, as well as psychological problems. The 
past few years have been attended with vigorous discussions 
of the feasibility of instruction in matters sexual, and an ex- 
tensive literature has accumulated.^ These discussions con- 
cern four main queries: why, by whom, when, and how ? 

Why ? — Children possess a natural curiosity concerning 
the origin of life, birth, difference between the sexes, functions 
of sex organs, and the significance of the bodily changes ob- 
served in themselves at puberty. They have a right to know 
about these things. Correctly given instruction in sex hygiene 
certainly tends toward the securing of a healthful sexual 

^ An excellent indication of the interest manifested in the problem and of 
current views on the subject is to be found in the symposium on The Problem 
of Sex-instruction, Journal of Education, 75: March 21, 1912, 313-323. The 
writer has summarized some of the recent literature in the Journal of Educ. 
Psychol., 2 : October, 1911, 464-470. In the same issue will be found a good survey 
of the problem by W.S. Foster, School Instruction in Matters of Sex, 440-450, 
and a description of an actual high school course, by W. H. Eddy, An Experi- 
ment in Teaching Sex Hygiene, 451-458. Teachers may secure, at nominal 
sums, by addressing the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, 9 East 
42d St., New York City, a series of six Educational Pamphlets of value. The 
same organization publishes a series of Transactions and a Journal of Social 
Diseases. Some important papers on sex hygiene will be found in Vol. II, 
No. 4, October, 191 1, issue. For an extended discussion, see Havelock EUis, 
Psychology of Sex, Vol. 6. ' - 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 267 

development, and on this hinges healthful physical, mental, 
and moral development. The " policy of silence," which 
has been predominant in this country in the past, and which 
is still favored by many parents and teachers, is absolutely 
indefensible, as any one fully conversant with the facts knows 
full well. The child's curiosity drives him to secure infor- 
mation where he may find it, and he usually secures it from, 
playmates in a ^filthy, misleading, and reprehensible form. 
Lack of early instruction is the primary cause of bad personal 
habits. It is responsible for the pathetic anxiety and worry 
of numerous adolescent boys and girls, who fear that the 
symptoms of pubertal change that they see in themselves are 
abnormal, frequently become the prey of quack " doctors," 
and hiay even be driven to contemplate suicide on that ac- 
count.^ Lack of instruction is responsible, too, at least in 
part, for youthful immorality. " Girls who go wrong " often 
blame their parents. Schoolmen have unearthed most ap- 
palling conditions in some high schools. Finally, lack of 
instruction is responsible, in part, for the frightful spread of 
venereal diseases.^ It is surely worth while to incur whatever 
slight risks may attend the giving of instruction to the young 
if these calamitous evils may be in some measure counteracted. 
By Whom ? — Ideally, sex instruction should be the 
welcome task of parents. In practice, parental instruction 
is a failure. In many cases the parents are themselves in- 
competent to give the instruction. More often they do not 
attempt it on account of false modesty. To them sex is 
" taboo." They repress the first questionings of their children 
and erect insurmountable barriers to further approach. The 
child soon learns to refrain from direct inquiry.^ Yet other 

1 Hall, Adolescence, I, 459-463. 

^ See particularly, W. L. Howard, M.D., Plain Facts on Sex Hygiene. New 
York, 1910. 

' On the disastrous effects of this undermining of the faith and intimacy of 
parent and child, see Ernest Jones, M.D., Psycho-analysis and Education. 
Joitr. of Educ. Psych., I; tgio, 497-520. 



268 Principles of Secondary Education 

parents intend to inform their children, but put off the day of 
enlightenment until conversation is too difficult or it is too late. 

In some quarters, especially in Germany, the church or 
the clergy have claimed the prerogative of guiding sexual 
development in youth, but no serious, systematic, or extensive 
movement for allying sexual with religious instruction is to 
be discerned in this country. It would be predestined to 
failure, partly because the minister is too distant in his rela- 
tions with his congregation, partly because he is incompetent 
properly to instruct children in these matters. He can, of 
course, perform a valuable indirect service by his appeal for 
moral conduct, self-respect, and high ideals. 

The family doctor has also been thought by some to be the 
natural agent of sex instruction, but here, again, both peda- 
gogical skill and personal intimacy are wanting. 

The school, then, remains as the best practical agency. 
The school undertakes the general physical, mental, and 
moral training of the child; why should it not include this 
particular aspect ? ^ The teacher has pedagogical skill ; the 
teacher knows the child. The child looks to the teacher for 
guidance. Reproduction may be studied perfectly logically 
in physiology and biology, and the basis for special instruction 
may there be firmly laid. 

When ? — Opinions differ as to whether instruction in sex 
should be left till the time of puberty or not. The chief argu- 
ment for postponement is the plea that unnatural precocity 
will result from early instruction, and the desire to keep the 
child in " blessed ignorance." The arguments for prepubertal 
instruction are much weightier. More pupils may be reached 
in this period if the instruction is given in the school. In- 
struction is easier then, for both teacher and child. Adults 
are seldom able to realize how much less self-conscious than 
themselves are children who have not reached their teens. 

1 See Jones, op. cU.,p. 515, and C. W. Eliot, School Instruction in Sex Hygiene, 
Proc. 5th Cong. Amer. Sch. Hyg. Assoc. New York, 1911, 22-26. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 269 

Again, a prime reason for early instruction is the fear of the 
evils that may follow deferment. As Dr. Blom says: " Better 
a year too early than an hour too late." Finally, experience has 
demonstrated the feasibility of early instruction. The alleged 
precocity does not develop if the instruction is properly given. 

How ? — If we admit that sex instruction should begin in 
the prepubertal period and extend through the pubertal 
period, the method and material of instruction fall naturally 
into two parts. During the first, or prepubertal, period, which 
would naturally coincide with the elementary school, instruc- 
tion should be straightforward, objective, factual, and essen- 
tially scientific in vein, and should be incorporated mainly 
in the teaching of physiology, nature study, and personal 
hygiene. If this work could be based upon, and supplemented 
by, home instruction, so much the better.^ 

In the second, or pubertal and postpubertal period, i.e. in 
the secondary school, instruction should take on a more per- 
sonal and subjective tone and be presented with a strong 
ethical and social emphasis. Just what should be given and 
what not given is still a matter of debate, and the whole 
pedagogy of sex hygiene is yet in the experimental stage. 
Much depends on the local situation and on the skill and per- 
sonality of the teacher. Thus, it is debated whether refer- 
ence to the pathology of sex, particularly to venereal dis- 
eases, their nature and spread, is desirable or undesirable. 
A middle course would seem to be indicated. To secure 
right conduct in sex as in other matters we need to use both 
positive and negative incentives.^ 

1 Suggestions for a graded course of prepubertal instruction will be found in 
B. Talmey, M.D., Genesis: a Manual of Instruction of Children in Matters 
Sexual (New York, 1910), Part IT, though some of the material there proposed 
seems too difficult for the ages to which it is assigned. Consult also Clara 
Schmitt, The Teaching of the' Facts of Sex in the PubHc School, Fed. Son., 
27: June, igio, 229-241. 

2 In favor of warning against venereal diseases is, of course, the hope that it 
will serve as a powerful deterrent against yielding to temptation. Thus Howard 



2/0 Principles of Secondary Ediication 

Also debatable is the question whether instruction should 
be occasional or systematic, optional or prescribed, to separate 
or to mixed classes, by physicians or by regular teachers. 
Neither is it clear how much value is to be gained from the 
circulation of " books of warning," as they have been termed.^ 
The experiences reported by W. H. Eddy ^ and by Jessie 
Phelps ^ show that it is perfectly feasible to arrange a well- 
organized and successful course in conjunction with the work 
in biology. 

The Migratory Instinct. — The sex instinct is one factor in 
that complex impulse to seek new surroundings, to exchange the 
routine and the familiar for the fresh and the unknown, which 
is termed the migratory instinct. Thus, the migrations of 
animals are partly impelled by food-getting, partly by climatic 
conditions, but partly also by the approach of mating and 
breeding seasons. And in children, though the running 

{pp. cit., p. iii) writes : "The fearful havoc the diseases explained in this book are 
making among the innocent is due to ignorance. It is my purpose in this book 
to destroy forever this injurious ignorance. This is the only way to stop the 
increase of the curse that is over all the land." Similarly, Talmey recommends 
instruction on menstruation, pollution, and masturbation to children 13 to 16 
years of age, and instruction on gonorrhea, syphilis, and continence to children 
16 to 18 years of age. Divergent views are expressed by Dr. Richard Cabot 
(The Consecration of the Affections — often misnamed Sex Hygiene. Procsth 
Cong, of the Amer. Sch. Hyg. Assoc, New York, 1911, pp. 114-120) and by 
W. D. Parkinson (Sex and Education. Educ. Rev., 41 : January, 1911, 42-59), 
who question whether we can create virtue by dwelling on vice, and think it 
bad morality to preach virtue for fear of the consequences of sin. Parkinson's 
article closes with a very suggestive set of questions which will repay considera- 
tion. 

1 These are abundant enough, but not always of the tj-pe to be desired — 
straightforward, cautious, and impressive without being sentimental. Good 
examples are E. Lyttelton, Training of the Young in Laws of Sex, London, 1000, 
and two books by Dr. Edith B. Lowry, Confidences: Talks with a Young Girl 
concerning Herself (Chicago: Forbes & Co., 1910) and Truths: Talks ivith a 
Boy concerning Himself, 1910. 

^ Op. cit. 

3 Biologic teaching of sex. Trans, ist. Ann. Meeting Amer. Assoc, for the 
Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality. Baltimore, 1910, pp. 291-296. 
(Reviewed in Jour. Educ. Psych., 2: 1911, 464-470.) 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 271 

away from home, which often begins as soon as walking is 
learned, has doubtless various motives, conscious or sub- 
conscious, yet the tendency is certainly stronger in the spring 
than at other seasons (so that our " spring fever " probably 
has some biological significance) and stronger at adolescence 
than at other ages.^ So Kline- has found that the " curve " of 
"love of adventure" rises rapidly to 10, and steadily there- 
after to 19, and has shown a clear nexus between truancy 
and the migratory instinct ; and Brooks ^ in his suggestive 
study on withdrawal from school found that " desire for ac- 
tivity " is a peculiarly potent factor at the dawn of adoles- 
cence. Naturally, this characteristic restlessness of adoles- 
cence need not manifest itself in actual truancy or running 
away from home. But parents know full well how, with the 
widening circle of acquaintances and the widening range of 
interests that the high school entails, their sons and daughters 
grow less and less home-bodies and are more and more caught 
up in the bustle and activity of life outside their own fold. 
The fact that the yearning is so often a veritable Wanderlust 
raises the question whether the school might not turn the 
tendency to good account by arranging collecting trips, school 
excursions to points of industrial, historic, geologic, or geo- 
graphic interest, providing lectures on travel and life in for- 
eign countries, or by encouraging camera clubs, walking 
clubs, vacation tours, and the like. 

It is unfortunate that we have in America no such organ- 
ized trips for pupils as have long been regular features of 

1 The writer has found that in college classes those men who have not run 
away from home one or more times during their high school period are generally 
in the minority. The essentially instinctive character of the motivation is 
evident both in the frequence of the occurrence and in the fact that there is 
really no clear reason or necessity for the going in most instances ; the impulse 
often seizes suddenly upon boj^s whose home conditions were most happy. 

^L. J. Kline, The Migratory Impulse -os. Love of Home. Amer. Jour, of 
Psych., 10: 1898, 1-81. 

^ S. D. Brooks, Causes of Withdrawal from School. Ediic. Rev., 26: 1903, 
362. 



272 Principles of Secondary Educatiofi 

German school life. With us points of interest appear to be 
too far apart ; the cost of travel is perhaps too great ; we 
lack the convenient inns. A beginning has been made, how- 
ever, in some parts of the country ; some schools in central 
New York have arranged walking trips through districts of 
historic interest in their vicinity; excursions of graduating 
classes to Washington have also become common. Similarly, 
competent instructors have taken groups of boys on bicycKng 
trips of a week or more, under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. 
The recent Boy Scout movement also provides for various 
expeditions. 

THE SOCIAL ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENCE. The 
Social Instincts. — The sex instinct in all animals leads to 
association for longer or shorter periods (mating and breeding 
seasons), and when the young have a distinct period of in- 
fancy (with attendant helplessness), the need of parental 
care may prolong the association or lead to something like 
family life. In human beings adolescence marks the ripen- 
ing of a number of racial tendencies known as the social or 
group instincts. Among these tendencies are the seeking to 
be where other persons are (gregariousness, need of society), 
seeking to win the good will of others (love of approbation, 
need of " getting-on " with people), and seeking to help or 
assist others by positive service (altruism, self-sacrifice). 
We do not need to assume that these instinctive responses 
to the situations of daily life are seen only during or after 
puberty, or that they are manifested in the same way by all 
adolescents, or that no other causes conspire to elicit them 
than the biological upheaval of puberty. The essential thing 
is that these types of feeling and behavior are normally in- 
tensified as the body assumes preparedness for the functions 
of racial perpetuation. Compared with the relatively self- 
centered life of the child, the life of the adolescent is shot 
through with consciousness of self as related to other persons. 
His outlook is hetero-centric, not ego-centric. His behavior 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 273 

has constantly a social reference. He considers himself in 
relation to others. 

It needs no argument to show how important these social 
tendencies are from every point of view. On their successful 
development and utilization depend the last and perhaps 
most significant advances in mental development. Failure 
to make these high adolescent adjustments is the cause of 
much inefficiency, failure, and misery.^ The skillful second- 
ary-school teacher sees in them both the cardinal problem 
of adolescent moral training and the means whereby, if at 
all, this training may be reahzed. A brief survey of these 
tendencies will, then, enable us to discuss their utilization 
in the school. 

Gregariousness. — The assumption of these new attitudes 
is not the work of a moment. On the contrary one sees a 
vacillation between the childish and the youthful attitudes. 
The readjustment takes time, and contradictory behavior 
appears. Thus, in the case of gregariousness, many young 
adolescents, particularly boys, pass through a stage of what 
is almost a fear of society, characterized by bashfulness, 
diffidence, extreme self-consciousness, clumsiness, blushing 
and dread of committing some gaucherie. This anti-social 
attitude is shown primarily in the presence of the opposite 
sex, and probably more often by those who are brought up 
alone,^ or whose conduct has been the subject of too much 
criticism or censure by parents or friends. 

Sympathy. — Another phase of the social tendencies, per- 
haps sufficiently definite to be classed as a specific instinct, 
is that disposition to enter appreciatively into the lives and 
especially into the misfortunes of others — in other words, to 
be sympathetic. A sort of pseudo-sympathy develops in 

^ E. B. Huey, Retardation and the Mental Examination of Retarded Children. 
Jour, of Psycho- A sthenics, 15 : 1910, 31-43. 

2 E. W. Bohannon, The Only Child in a Family. Fed. Sem., 5 : 1898, 475- 
496. 



274 Principles of Secondary Education 

very young children, but genuine sympathy is rarely dis- 
played before adolescence. On it evidently depend a number 
of important ethical traits and activities, like kindness, benev- 
olence, charity, and philanthropy. Moral training in the 
secondary school must aim to ensure an adequate develop- 
ment of these essential social virtues. 

Approbation. — The inclination so to act as to win the ap- 
probation of others is obviously enough appUed to instincts 
underlying courtship. But, by extension, the adolescent 
wants also to win the approval of others than the individual 
of the opposite sex who serves as the special object of attrac- 
tion. The adolescent wants to make a name for himself, to 
feel that he has the good opinion of parents, teachers, and 
schoolmates.^ That indefinable something we call " public 
sentiment " now has profound weight. " Social pressure " 
has now a real significance. What the adolescent eats, 
wears, says, and does is largely determined by what he thinks 
other people will approve. Boys and girls do this and that 
because " it is the thing." Needless to say that this tendency 
may prove a powerful lever in the hands of the teacher. 
" Children thus often become what their teachers believe 
them to be, and many a boy has been saved by the faith re- 
posed in him by teacher, parent, or friend." But the same 
tendency may, of course, become an equally powerful deter- 
miner for evil if the wrong kind of approval be sought for : 
a criminal might rejoice in being esteemed the toughest mem- 
ber of his " gang." 

Sometimes this desire for approbation is abnormally strong, 
so that the adolescent has an almost morbid dread of antag- 

1 In asking college students what incentives motivate their daily work, I have 
been struck with the uniformly high place accorded such factors as "Desire 
to please my parents," and "Desire to stand well in the opinion of my friends." 
These motives are, I judge, more potent in maintaining effort through the labor 
of daily tasks than the remoter incentives like "Desire to be of service to man- 
kind," "Desire to get a good position," or "Desire to acquire a thorough 
knowledge of the subjects I am studying." 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 275 

onizing his associates : he assents to all their opinions ; he 
effaces himself completely, and becomes a sort of social 
parasite.^ 

Altruism. — Altruistic tendencies add one more step to the 
progress of socialization, for they impel the adolescent not 
only to associate with others, to sympathize with them, and 
so to act as to insure their approbation, but also to perform 
positive service for them, at his own discomfort or disadvan- 
tage. This trait is not one to be gained in a moment. Al- 
truistic conduct may alternate with utter selfishness. In- 
deed, paradoxical as it may seem, genuine selfishness may be 
more evident in adolescence than in childhood. The self- 
centered career of tTie child is natural and instinctive, whereas 
the adolescent chooses between conflicting tendencies, and 
if selfishly, then in the face of his appreciation of duty and 
obligation to others. But, in general, adolescence is, as 
Hall says : " The great period in life for devotion to others, 
especially in self-sacrificing causes. Pledges, agreements, vows, 
and other restrictions on one's freedom are made at this period 
with a joyous enthusiasm." As we shall see later on, these 
altruistic tendencies lie at the root of the proclivity of adoles- 
cents to indulge in various forms of philanthropy, to champion 
reform movements, and to plan careers of social service. 

Self -organized Groups. — If we turn now to concrete 
instances of the operation of the social tendencies, perhaps 
firstin order is the instance of self-organized groups, or "gangs." 
Sheldon^ found that 851 of 1034 boys would admit member- 

^ Probably this disposition accounts for certain cases of apparent religious 
conversion, with subsequent backsliding. Social pressure, personal appeal of 
pastor, parents, or friends, and the highly emotional setting make a combina- 
tion of great suggestive power while it lasts. 

^ H. Sheldon, The Institutional Activities of American Children. A mer. Jour, 
of Psych., 9 : 1898, 425-448. See also W. B. Forbush, The Boy Problem (4th 
ed. Phila., 1902), and T. J. Browne, Boys' Gangs. Association Outlook, 8: 
1899,96-107. Louis D. Hartson, The Psychology of the Club: a Study In 
Social Psychology. Fed. Sem., 18: September, 1911, 353-414 (with bibliog- 
raphy of 89 titles.) J. A. Puffer, The Boy and his Gang. Boston, 191 2. 



276 Principles of Secondary Education 

ship in some such rudimentary society. The years 10 to 17, 
particularly 11, 12, and 13, are those in which membership 
is commonest. The motives and activities of these societies 
are of evident interest to teachers and parents who would 
understand and control them, or who would themselves 
organize or direct societies for young adolescents. Of 123 
spontaneously formed societies, Sheldon found the prevailing 
motive (in 61 per cent) to be athletic, with another phase of 
physical activity, the predatory — hunting, fighting, camp- 
ing out, etc. — ^ next in order (17 per cent). On the other 
hand, industrial, philanthropic, literary, artistic, and merely 
social purposes are all less frequently exhibited. It appears 
that the moral tone of these organizations tends, on the whole, 
to deteriorate, so that hoodlumism, lawlessness, destruction of 
property, and even more serious crimes, such as arson, larceny, 
assault, organized theft, and even murder, may ultimately 
develop. Under more favorable circumstances, however, 
the better social traits may prevail, so that, as the mem- 
bers of the gang grow older, intellectual interests may sup- 
plant the physical activity interests.- It appears, furthermore, 
that boys and girls do not naturally organize together, and 
that the tj^e of spontaneous organization formed by girls 
tends to differ from that formed by boys, being more frequently 
social, philanthropic and literary than athletic or predatory. 
Girls tend more strongly, also, to join societies organized for 
them by adults than to organize societies of their own, 

Maxims for Organizing Societies. — Those who have had 
experience with controlling or organizing societies for young 
adolescents ^ are in general agreement upon the following 
principles : (i) Boys should be sought at about the age of 
10 and their natural " gang instinct " supervised or controlled 
until it has died out or has been permanently directed toward 
worthy ends. (2) The basis and at least the initial stages of 

^ See, in addition to Sheldon and Forbush, Winifred Buck, Boys' Self- 
Goveriiing Clubs. New York, 1903. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 277 

any society organized for boys must be sought in some phase 
of physical activity. Literary, ethical, scientific, or religious 
activities must be annexed, not too obtrusively, to the physical 
activity interest. Even in seriously purposed efforts to reach 
boys, the seriousness must not be too evident ; the didactic 
element must not be too prominent. (3) The sexes are best 
organized separately ; boys should be led by a manly man 
with a bit of athletic ability, considerable patience, and tact. 
(4) It is difficult successfully to maintain a society whose 
members are of different types, of different social stations, 
or perhaps from different neighborhoods. (5) Leaders of 
societies for boys and girls at this stage of maturity must 
not hope for great permanence in the orgam'zation ; jealousies, 
disputes, and unexpected dissensions frequently disrupt them, 
however skillful the leader may be. 

Variety of Adult-made Societies. — Nearly every adolescent, 
besides participating in spontaneous organizations, finds 
further outlet for his social tendencies by affiliating himself 
with some form of social organization directed or instituted 
by adults. The number and variety of these adult-made 
organizations is surprisingly great — instance such institu- 
tions as the summer camps, Boy Scouts, Boys' Brigades, de- 
bating societies, school literary and musical organizations, 
civic and patriotic societies, nature-study clubs, city-history 
clubs, social-settlement clubs, the Knights of King Arthur, 
the Animal Protective League, The Loyal Temperance Le- 
gion, the Band of Mercy, the Captains of Ten, the Epworth 
League, the Boys' Branch of the Y. M. C. A., the Junior En- 
deavor Society, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the Sun- 
day School, and a host of others. Into their several merits 
and defects, from the standpoint of the needs and nature of 
the adolescent, this is not the place to enter. As Forbush 
has shown, no one of them is " the best." Few of them, un- 
fortunately, make appeal to all, or even to many sides of adoles- 
cent nature, and in so far probably fail to make the strongest 



278 Principles of Secondary Education 

possible appeal to their clientele. Yet the idea of banding 
adolescents together for concerted action, even for a limited 
and somewhat selfish purpose, is undoubtedly worth while and 
is a first step toward attaining that wider unselfishness that 
seeks the best good of society at large. 

School Organizations. — Within the school itself, the tend- 
ency toward organization has apparently greatly augmented 
during the past decade. We find in the ordinary high school 
various school and class organizations (class meetings, musical 
clubs, sketch clubs, art clubs, school periodicals, etc.), as- 
sociations dealing with athletics and military drill, and secret 
fraternal organizations. These latter are sufficiently im- 
portant to deserve separate consideration. As for the other 
associations and organizations we may summarize the con- 
clusions reached by the comprehensive investigation of the 
Massachusetts Council of Education,^ as follows : 

1. " Class organizations, literary societies, musical organiza- 
tions, art clubs, and school papers are helpful to the pupils 
and a benefit to the school, provided they are under the over- 
sight of the school authorities. 

2. " Class committees for purposes partly commercial 
(class pins, photographs, dances, etc.) are especially in need 
of the most exacting regulations. 

3. " While more than half of the athletic associations which 
include and direct the varied athletic activities of the school 
are under the supervision, more or less complete, of the teachers 
of the schools, the right to control has been assumed rather 
than assured. Under this assumed control the participation 
in athletics is conditioned upon rank in scholarship. 

4. " A large majority of the teachers reporting consider 
athletics a benefit to the schools. Sixty-five per cent believe 
that both scholarship and discipline are improved. But all 

1 Report on Organizations among High School Pupils. (T. C. Whitcomb, 
Chairman of Committee), 6Qt}i An. Repl. Brd. Ediic. Mass., 1904-1905. Boston, 
January 1906. Public Doc. No. 2, pp. 178-198. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolesce7ice 279 

agree that this is only true when all such matters are under 
the control of the school authorities." 

High School Secret Societies. — A problem of special in- 
terest to high school administrators is set by the development 
in recent years of the special form of social organization known 
as the secret society. The motives that have led to the ap- 
pearance of the fraternity and sorority in the secondary school 
are primarily two in number : first, the influence of the general 
instinctive tendency toward the formation of social groups 
that we have been considering; secondly, the tendency to 
imitate college customs. While there is nothing intrinsically 
evil in either of these tendencies, their actual crystallization 
in the high school secret society has unquestionably been 
attended with evil consequences, so that at the present day, 
with a very few minor exceptions, school boards, superin- 
tendents, and high school principals and teachers are posi- 
tively and strenuously opposed to them. 

The arguments for and against the high school secret society 
rnay be summarized as follows : ^ 

Alleged Merits. — (i) They satisfy the desire for social 
organization and promote fellowship among pupils. (2) They 

1 See for a more detailed outline, W. T. Foster, Argumentation and Debating 
(Boston, 1908), pp. 202-217. 

The following are a few characteristic references on the topic : E. G. Godfrey, 
High School Fraternities and Sororities ; the Illiberal Education of the Young 
American Snob. Sat. Evening Post (Phila.), January 7, 1905. W. Hard, High 
School Fraternities ; Farce, Tragedy, and Statesmanship. Everybody's Mag., 21 : 
August, 1909, 173-183. P. B. Kohlsaat, Secondary School Fraternities not a 
Factor in Determining Scholarship, Sch. Rev., 13 : 1905, 272-274. W. B. Owen, 
The Problem of the High School Fraternity. Sch. Rev., 14: 1906, 492-504. 
G. D. Pettee, School Work and Secret Fraternities (address in pamphlet 
form, given at University School, Cleveland, Ohio, January 12, 1905) . Report of 
the Committee on Secret Fraternities, Pfoc. iV.£.^., 1905, 445-451. N. Melius, 
Are Secret Societies a Danger to our High Schools? Rev. of Rev., 36: 1907, 
338-341. S. R. Smith, Report Committees on the Influence of Fraternities in 
Secondary Schools. Sch. Rev., 13 : 1905, i-io. The important decision of the 
Supreme Court of the State of Washington may be found in Jour, of Educ, 64 : 
December 6, 1906, 607; also in Sch. Rev., 14: 1906, 739-745 and Bull. No. 3 
U. S. Bur. Educ, 1906, 136-141. 



28o Principles of Secondajy Education 

help to raise tlie standard of scholarship of their members. 

(3) They contain the best and most representative pupils. 

(4) They support all school activities and can accomplish 
more in this direction than a far greater number of unorganized 
individuals. (5) They furnish an opportunity for innocent, 
healthful good times. (6) Old members keep up a greater 
interest in their school after graduation. (7) Fraternity 
members are often assisted by meeting wearers of their pin 
in various places outside of their home town or city. (8) They 
reduce or eliminate undesirable rivalry between different 
high schools. (9) Some of them perform a small, but sincere 
work in the direction of philanthropy and charity. (10) Their 
exercises afford opportunity for training in literary, artistic, 
and other lines of activity. (11) They cannot be undemo- 
cratic and clannish, because they are not in operation during 
classroom exercises and other schoolroom activities. 

Alleged Faults. — (i) They are essentially unnecessary. 
(2) They are fundamentally opposed in conception to the 
democratic spirit underlying the whole theory of pubHc school 
education. (3) In selecting members, they often draw 
racial; social, religious, or professional lines and thus tend to 
promote snobbery and caste. (4) They interfere with school 
politics by combinations, trades, and other "underground" 
methods. (5) If their average scholarship is not inferior 
to that of non-fraternity pupils, it is at least lower than it 
would be if the societies were abolished. (6) Their social 
functions exact too much time and energy. (7) They " offer 
temptations to imitate the amusements and relaxations of 
adult life (card playing, smoking, dancing, late hours, etc.) 
while their members have not acquired the power of guiding 
their actions by mature judgment." (8) When rooms or 
houses are occupied, members often spend time in them 
which should be devoted to school work. (9) These club 
houses and rooms tend strongly to induce extravagance. 
(10) They tend, furthermore, equally strongly to moral de- 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 281 

terioration : in some instances, vice has developed to alarm- 
ing proportions. (11) The societies often interfere boldly 
with the administration of school discipline. (12) Initiation 
ceremonies, especially in the earlier days, have been degrading, 
if not positively dangerous to life and health. 

Solutions of the Fraternity Problem. — There may be dis- 
cerned three administrative attitudes toward the high school 
fraternities, viz : non-interference, regulation, and suppres- 
sion. Those who officially ignore the secret societies do so 
either because they do not find them undesirable or because 
they are afraid to move against them.^ Systems of regu- 
lation have commonly worked by (i) Hmiting the number 
of societies, (2) prescribing time, place, and character of meet- 
ings, (3) prohibiting membership without the written con- 
sent of parents and the indorsement of the principal, and 
(4) overseeing social functions and other activities of the 
organizations. Suppression may be accompHshed by moral 
suasion under favorable conditions ^ but otherwise formal 
proceedings must be instituted. These usually take the form 
of regulations drawn up by the board of education withdraw- 
ing school privileges (participation in honors, membership in 
athletic^teams, class offices, graduation honors, etc.) from 
all who continue in membership. In the few instances in 
which the fraternities have contested this regulation by re- 
sort to law, the decisions have favored the school authorities. 
Most important is the decision handed down by the Supreme 
Court of the State of Washington which fully upheld the posi- 
tion of the school board of Seattle, despite the contention 
of the contestants that the fraternal activities were private 

1 There is a real danger here. A writer in the Journal of Education, April 4, 
1907, declares that "any high school principal is liable to take his livelihood in 
his hands when he attacks those in his school" and that experience has shown 
that "it is safe to antagonize them when a principal is sure of the loyal support 
of his faculty, of the unanimous and unhesitating support of his board of educa- 
tion and of the editorial and news departments of all the local press." 

2 See, for an instance, Pettee, op. cit. 



282 Principles of Secondary Education 

affairs, outside of the jurisdiction of the school authorities. 
The final stage in the movement against this special form of 
social organization is seen in the enactment in several states 
{e.g. Kansas, Indiana, Minnesota, CaHfornia, Michigan, 
Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon) of general legislation ^ 
absolutely prohibiting the establishment or continuance of 
secret societies in the secondary schools of the state. 

Self-government Plans. — The transition to which at- 
tention has repeatedly been called from the control by others 
of childhood to the self-control of maturity, taken in con- 
junction with the manifest tendency to work together in 
teams, groups, committees, and other combinations, suggests 
very strongly that in the high school, if anywhere in the public 
schools, some form of pupil self-government would be logical 
and presumably successful. There have been developed in 
recent years a number of widely heralded plans for compassing 
this end. 

The '' School City.'''' — A characteristic plan is that known 
as the " school city." In this, each pupil is a citizen; each 
room is called a ward, and practically all the officials of a 
regular city government — mayor, aldermen, board of health, 
poHce, city judge, and so on — are represented in the govern- 
ment, with such adaptations as are required by the special 
purposes of school government. The monthly elections follow 
prescribed forms, and one purpose of the plan is to afford 
concrete training in the operations of municipal government. 
In the extreme applications of the scheme, all school problems 
outside of classroom instruction, and especially, of course, 
all problems of discipline, are handled by this pupil-govern- 
ment, with a minimum of interference by the principal or 
teachers. These school cities have been organized in gram- 
mar and even in primary grades, though there seems, a priori, 
to be little sanction for the turning of the control of yoi;nger 

1 For the text of these laws, see Rept. U . S. Comsnr. Educ. for 1907, Ch;:r> 
XV, p. 437, and CUy School Circular, No. 8, April 15, 1912. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 283 

pupils into their own hands. As a matter of fact, the plan 
does not always work successfully in the high school. So 
far as the writer's observation extends, the school city is 
taken up with enthusiasm and enjoys a period of success, 
only, sooner or later, to become too arduous : the novelty of 
the enterprise wears off ; jealousies and intrigue threaten the 
undertaking; over-harsh punishments are meted out; the 
training in cheap politics and " graft " becomes, perhaps, 
more evident than the training in citizenship ; the teachers 
find their hands full in controlling the machinery, and finally 
the whole affair collapses in failure. 

Simpler Self-government Plans. — A less intricate, and 
apparently more successful form of pupil self-government, 
in operation in the Polytechnic High School of Los Angeles 
and in certain high schools in Philadelphia and St. Louis,^ 
provides that one boy and one girl be elected, every term, 
from each of the three upper classes, from a list of candidates 
whose scholarship is above a certain standard. Those elected 
form two committees, one for each sex, who have entire charge 
of the conduct of pupils, see that order is maintained in hall, 
study and recitation rooms, and even, to some extent, in the 
yards. They have authority, even to actual suspension, 
though only in consultation with teachers when dealing with 
extreme cases. The results of this form of self-government 
(which is, one may say, an oligarchy or " aristocracy," as com- 
pared with the " democracy " of the school city) are said to 
be excellent, provided that both parents and pupils give full 
adherence and that the committees are absolutely fair and are 
properly supported by the teachers. The idea seems difficult, 
but worth trying when conditions are favorable.^ 

1 Bertha H. Smith, Self-Government in PubHc Schools. Atl. Mo., 102 : 
1908, 675-678. 

^ For further Hterature on pupil self-government, see O. P. Cornman, The 
School City : an Inquiry Concerning its Success and Value. Proc. of the New 
York Conference for Good City Government, 1905, 280-289. B. Cronson, Pupil 
Self-government. New York, 1907. C. W. French, School Government. Sch. 



284 Principles of Secondary Educatio7i 

Group Work in the Classroom. — If the social instincts of 
high school pupils may be utilized, with some success in con- 
trolling discipline through various self-government plans, 
it is but natural to believe that the spirit of cooperation might 
be utihzed within the classroom as well. In a few high schools 
where this type of group work has been tried, the results 
have, indeed, seemed very favorable. The scheme resembles 
in many ways the " seminary " type of instruction of the uni- 
versity. The various topics or phases of the subject studied 
are delegated to the several pupils of the class : each pupil 
reports upon the topics assigned to him, while the other 
members criticize, question, or discuss his report. 

A characteristic instance of this type of group work has been 
reported from the Charlestown, Massachusetts, high school. 
Here the plan has been tried with classes in ancient history, 
United States history, and civil government. The recitation 
took on the form of a business meeting, with a president, 
vice president, and secretary. The lesson was conducted 
by the class, with the teacher as " executive officer " — a 
court of final appeal. The " report of the last meeting," 
read by the secretary, served as a review. The carrying out 
of this work led to the formation of various secondary groups, 
such as a Drawing Club, a Camera Club, a Library Club, a 
Current-Events Club, a " Sidelights Club," etc.^ 

i?CT., 6: 1898, 35-44. C. W. French, The School City. Sch. Rev., 13: 1905. 
33-41. G. H. Martin, Student Self-government. Proc. Chicago Confer, for 
Good City Government, 1904, 279-282. W. A. McAndrew, High School Self- 
government. Sch. Rev., 5 : 1907, 456-460. J. T. Ray, Pupil Self-government, 
Jour, of Educ, October 25, 1906. T. R. Slicer, The School City as a Form of 
Student Government. Proc. Chicago Confer. Good City Government, 1904, 283- 
293. C. H. Thurber, High School Self-government. Sch. Rev., 5: 1907, 32- 
35. P. A. Walker, Self-government in the High School. Elem. Sch. Teacher, 
7: 1907, 451-457- 

1 Lotta A. Clark, Group Work in the High School. Elem. Sch. Teacher, 7 : 
1907, 335-344. See also C. B. Shaw, Some Experiments in Group Work, ibid. 
329-334. Colin A. Scott, Social Education, Boston, 1908, especially Chaps. VI 
and VH; and J. Dewey, ScJiool and Society, Chicago, 1900. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 285 

The advantages claimed for group work in the classroom 
are : (i) It utilizes the natural instinctive tendencies of the 
period. (2) It trains the pupils to work cooperatively. 
(3) It permits the individual pupil to concentrate his energy 
upon the particular thing that he most wants to do. (4) It 
stimulates constructive criticism by pupils of the work of 
their mates, and apparently appeals more powerfully than 
ordinary recitation work to the instincts of competition and 
desire for approbation. (5) It develops more enthusiasm 
for study, makes the school work more real and personal, 
less imposed from without. 

Possible disadvantages would seem to be : (i) It may pro- 
ceed slowly and take too much time. (2) It may fail to yield 
a proper perspective of the subject matter. (3) Pupils may 
fail to have a thorough understanding or permanent acquisi- 
tion of those topics or phases of the subject matter not studied 
by themselves. In some subjects where drill in all details 
is essential this would seem to constitute a fatal obstacle to 
the plan. (4) Idle or incompetent pupils may shirk their 
assignments or present them so poorly that nothing would 
be gained for the class. On the whole, however, the idea of 
group work in the classroom deserves more attention than 
has yet been accorded it. 

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL ASPECTS OF ADOLES- 
CENCE. In the religious life of its members, the public 
secondary school can have, of course, no direct participation ; 
nevertheless, this Hfe is so often profoundly modified during 
adolescence and with such decided effect upon motives, 
ideals, and conduct that the teacher cannot afford to remain 
ignorant of the main features of this spiritual reconstruction. 

Religious Conversion in Adolescence. — Adolescence is 
preeminently the time for religious conversion. Lancaster 
reports that, of 598 young people, 518 were ready to admit 
and describe to him a religious experience akin to conversion, 
which occurred, for the most part, between the ages 12 and 



286 Principles of Secondary Education 

20. Statistics secured in various ways confirm the results of 
questionaries and indicate that the years 15, 16, and 17 are 
the years of greatest rehgious impressionability. 

The Explanation. — The explanation of these facts is not 
far to seek. The maturing of the sex instinct, with its strong 
attendant social instincts, means inevitably, as we have seen, 
a process of readjustment toward life, a transition from an 
individualistic to a social attitude, from egoism to altruism. 
If conversion, stripped of its theological implications, means 
a resolution to become unselfish, to array one's self on the 
side of right living, to sacrifice one's own desires for the wel- 
fare of others, then it is evident that what we might term a 
" secular conversion " is normal in adolescent development, 
and is really biologically determined. This converting (hter- 
ally, turning) is by theology envisaged as a turning from sin 
unto holiness. Most adolescents, surrounded, as they are, by 
the strong and pervading influence of the church, come natu- 
rally to experience this instinctive readjustment of attitude 
as a religious readjustment. Many thinkers have felt, ac- 
cordingly, that the richest service and most vital task of re- 
ligion is to take charge of this transition from self-love to 
love of mankind, to make the transition complete, and to 
conserve and direct the activities of the adolescents who are 
experiencing it. 

Tendencies toward Conventionalizing Conversion. — But there 
are certain dangers attending the formalizing by religious 
bodies of the experience of conversion. Particularly, to in- 
sist too much upon certain " patterns " of conversion is un- 
warranted in the light of what we know psychologically of the 
extreme individuality of all adolescent experience.^ Even 

1 On this and other features of the psychology of religion, the student may 
consult : E. S. Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience. Boston, 1910. 
G. A. Coe, The Spiritual Life: Studies in the Psychology of Religion. New- 
York, 1000. W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: a Study in 
Human Nature. New York, 1902. A. H. Daniels, The. New Life : a Study of 
Regeneration. Amer. Jour. Psych. 6 : 1893, 61-106. G. S. Hall, The Religious 



Psychology and Hygiene of Aciolesceiice 287 

now some theologians teach that conversion is an instanta- 
neous phenomenon, whereas the rule would appear to be other- 
wise ; conversion is a gradual growth, not a sudden miraculous 
paroxysm. Again, there is a tendency to conventionalize 
and to accentuate the various stages of conversion — the 
" conviction of sin," the " agonizing in prayer," the joy of de- 
liverance, the public " confession " are sufHciently illustrative. 
Some adolescents adopt these prescribed or approved forms 
of conversion, but others fail to experience them clearly and 
intensively, and may suffer exceedingly from what they regard 
as abnormality or unworthiness on their part. Finally, there 
is a tendency to encourage early conversion, despite the fact 
that the conversion of children is clearly theoretically un- 
warranted and nearly always practically unsatisfactory. 

Periods of Intellectual Reconstruction. — In those whose 
minds are intellectually active the religious experiences of 
adolescence are rarely had without passage through one or 
more periods of critical reconstruction, usually with doubt 
and skepticism. The necessity of such reconstruction is 
fairly obvious. The child is credulous, imaginative, sug- 
gestible. His early instruction in matters religious and 
philosophical is of necessity simplified, metaphorical, and 
partial. Childish notions of God, heaven, immortality, sin, 
and the like can hardly fail to dissatisfy the keener intellect 
of the young man or woman. Mythical interpretations that 
appeased juvenile curiosity are too crude to harmonize with 
the larger knowledge of life of maturer years, and must go 
the way of the Santa Claus legends of childhood.^ While 
in some natures this reconstruction of the cosmos is gradual, 
easy, and perhaps never completed, in others it is radical and 

Training of Children. Educational Problems, Vol. I, Chap. IV ; also Adolescence. 
J. H. Leuba, Psychological Study of Religion ; its Origin, Function and Ftittire. 
New York, 191 2. J. B . Pratt. The Psychology of Religious Belief. New York, 
1907. E. D. Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion. New York, 1899. 

1 Barnes, Theological Life of a California Child. Ped. Sem., 2 : 1893, 442-448. 



288 Principles of Secondary Education -^ 

stormy. Particularly in later adolescence may the uneasi- 
ness felt by glimmerings of inconsistencies in religious views 
extend to general doubt and uncertainty, until, finally, all 
religious belief may be repudiated, and the seeker after truth 
may swing over to agnosticism or indorse some system of 
humanistic ethics, morality without religion, or whatever 
code of belief best fits his private system of metaphysics. 
The Continuance of secular instruction through high school, 
college, and university is almost certain to breed a period of 
conflict in the necessity that it throws upon every thoughtful 
student to readjiist his earlier views in the light of his contact 
with science and philosophy and the general broadening of 
his mental horizon. 

The question naturally arises whether reconstruction, es- 
pecially the extremer forms of highly emotional, soul-racking 
internal struggle, is inevitable, or whether it might be, and 
should be, avoided by a better instruction in childhood. 
Some individuals, probably the minority, experience no 
serious interruption of the beliefs of childhood ; the majority, 
however, begin, it appears, by doubting some phase of these 
beliefs, e.g. the efficacy of prayer, the miracles, the biblical 
account of creation, the immortality of the soul, the divinity 
of Christ, the goodness of God in permitting evil, etc. While 
some of these doubts are probably inevitable, others of them 
appear to be the product of mistaken early instruction, par- 
ticularly of instruction that tends to exalt form over spirit, 
that presents the Bible as an inspired system of theology 
rather than an inspiring guide to life, that stresses dogma 
rather than the religious attitude. As Hall says : " Of all 
the outrages and mutilations practiced upon youth by well- 
meaning adults, insistence on such dogma upon pain of moral 
offense is perhaps the very most disastrous and anti-religious 
in its results, for it enlists the conscience of the individual, 
at an age when it is most vigorous and tender, against his own 
normal mental development." 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 289 

Studies of Ideals. — Closely allied with the social and 
religious development of adolescence is a characteristic altera- 
tion of ideals. This feature has been well brought out in 
numerous studies/ which have dealt both with personal ideals 
and with ideals of future occupation. The usual method 
has been to ask pupils to state whom they would most like to 
resemble or what they would most like to do when grown up. 
Some investigators have also asked for reasons for the choice 
indicated; others have studied " negative ideals " — "What 
person would you most want not to be like, and why? " 

The results of these investigations have been fairly con- 
sihent, and permit the following conclusions : 

(i) Ideals depend on Age. — Despite some individual 
variations, there is a well-defined trend of development in 
ideals from childhood to maturity. Curves may be plotted, 
then, to show the rise and fall of this or that ideal. Younger 
children mention always persons in their own family or in 
their immediate circle of acquaintances and are impressed 
with objective values — wealth, beauty, social station, ma- 
terial possessions, etc. At puberty there occurs a marked 
widening of the range of ideals : historic characters, public 
personages, characters in fiction, and even imaginary persons 
replace the members of the family circle, while intellectual, 

^Earl Barnes, Children's Ideals. Fed. Sem., 7: 1900, 3-12. Earl Barnes, 
Type Study onldeals. Studies in Educ, 2 : 1902, 36, 78, 115, 157, 198, 237, 277, 
319, 359 (9 papers). Also, Children's Attitude toward Future Occupation, 
ibid., 243. W. G. Chambers, The Evolution of Ideals. Fed. Sem., 18 : 1903, 
101-143 (with 23 references). Estelle M. Darrah, A Study of Children's 
Ideals. Pop. Sci. Mo., 53 : 1898, 88-98. J. Friedrich, Die Ideale der Kinder. 
Zbits. f. pad. Psych., 3: 1901, 38. H. H. Goddard, Die Ideale der Kinder. 
Zeits. f. exp. Pad. 5 : 1907, Hft. 1-2. H. H. Goddard, Negative Ideals, 
Studies in Educ, 2 : 1902, 392-398. J. I. Jegi, Children's Ambitions. Trans. 
III. Soc. for Child Study, 3: 1898, 131-144. L. W. Kline, A Study in 
Juvenile Ethics. Fed. Sem., 10: 1903, 239-266. C. H. Thurber, What Chil- 
dren want to do when they are Men and Women. Trans. III. Soc. Child Study, 2 : 
1897, 41-46. See also Proc. N. E. A., 1896. J. P. Taylor, Children's Hopes. 
An. Kept. State Supt. Pub. Instruc. N. Y., 1895-1896. Adelaide Wyckoff, Chil- 
dren's Ideals. Ped. Sem., 8 : 1901, 482-494. 
u 



290 Principles of Secondary Education 

aesthetic, moral, and religious values are substituted for the 
more material values of childhood. Moreover, ideals are 
evidently more vital and dynamic, more effective in motivating 
conduct in adolescence than in childhood. 

(2) Ideals depend on Sex. — The range of ideals has always 
been found more restricted in girls than in boys. That is, 
girls tend more strongly to select ideals from their immediate 
environment and share less than do boys in the broadening 
of the scope of ideals at adolescence. Of special interest is 
the circumstance that whereas boys only rarely list women 
as their ideals, many girls, nearly 50 per cent in fact, find their 
ideal persons in the opposite sex — a condition of affairs that 
seems particularly unfortunate for young girls at this time 
when ideals of womanhood should normally be developing. 
Here is an opportunity for women teachers to come to the 
rescue of their sex. In the lists of favored occupations, 
teaching is most favored by girls, with nursing, dressmaking, 
and millinery frequently cited ; boys are somewhat more apt 
to be animated by money-making motives. 

(3) Ideals depend on Home Life and Social Station. — The 
children of the poor have relatively simple and " low " ideals, 
and look forward, according to Thurber, to a life of hard work, 
with little pleasure. 

(4) Ideals depend on Type oj School Instruction. — This 
assertion is an inference, however, from the fact that Eng- 
lish and especially American children decidedly surpass 
German children in the range and variety of their ideals. 
It is possible that this outcome is due to racial or tempera- 
mental differences, but Meumann ^ believes that it points 
to fundamental differences in school instruction. German 
pedagogy lays too great stress on mere intellectual acquisir 
tion, too little on the cultivation of personality. If this be 
granted, it follows that it is highly important to give sys- 

^ E. Meumann, Vorhsungen ztir Einfuhrimg in d. exp. Pddag., 2d ed., I, 
624-628. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 291 

tematic and definite attention in the school to the inculcation 
of ideals. In Germany, where formal instruction in religion 
. and religious history is prominent, it appears that this part 
of the teaching has little effect upon ideals, whereas instruc- 
tion in secular history, literature, and poetry is much more 
potent.^ 

(5) The Variety oj Occupational Ideals is surprisingly great.. 
One might suppose that certain careers would be singled out 
as ideal by nearly all pupils. But in some 1200 answers to 
the question : " What would you most like to be in an imagi- 
nary new city? " — 114 different occupations were specified. 

(6) Their Alterations. — Since ideals tend to change, and 
to change with special rapidity at adolescence, it is usually 
unfortunate if the process is prematurely arrested. Thus, 
a lad of 18, who aspires to be a lawyer and an orator, had at 
16 an ambition to be " a pugilist and all-round sport." Had 
his teachers and parents not carried him past this earlier 
ideal, the results may well have been disastrous.^ 

(7) Over -ambitious Ideals. — In many adolescents ideals 
are curiously and excessively ambitious and impossible of 
reahzation. Through them runs, so often, a social and ethical 
vein which impels their possessor toward philanthropic and 
humanitarian projects. A school teacher of the writer's 
acquaintance summed up her adolescent ambitions in this 

1 That skillfully directed efforts may accomplish much in determining future 
careers of students is well illustrated in the success which has attended the 
"Baiting for College" schemes of some high-school principals, who have set up 
in their schools cabinets and display frames with photographs, catalogues, and 
other significant bits of information about various colleges and universities. 

2 To cite another typical case : A woman who is now a successful high school 
teacher of science wished for years in childhood that she were a boy in order to 
become an Episcopal rector (apparently largely attracted by his robe). In her 
grammar school days she planned to become a tight-rope walker and animal 
trainer in some large circus, and. actually trained a pet dog and cat and tried to 
walk ropes in her back yard. During high school she wanted at graduation to 
open a large dressmaking shop, but she was induced to go to college, got inter- 
ested in science, and finally in its teaching. 



292 Principles of Secondary Education 

interesting and characteristic series : " To be the protector 
of unhappy women, to write the history of the world, to write 
novels as great as Victor Hugo's, to be an actress, to reform 
society, to uphft the degraded." Given such adolescent 
yearnings in minds of great natures, of true geniuses, they 
may, indeed, be realized, as the biographies of Joan of Arc, 
Savonarola, Lafayette, and George Eliot bear witness. Given 
such yearnings in mediocre and inferior, but persistent minds, 
and pathetic failure is the consequence. High school and 
college teachers will recognize readily enough this top-heavy 
combination of high ambition and poor ability. 

MENTAL PATHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE. — Of the 
various disorders which may accompany the development of 
mental life during adolescence, attention can be called here 
only to the more prominent. Of actual mental deterioration, 
accompanied by brain disease, the most conspicuous and 
important disorder is the very puzzling and much-debated 
complex of symptoms known as precocious dementia, dementia 
prcBcox. This juvenile dementia, also sometimes known as 
hebephrenia, is a psychosis which tends to develop at the 
age of puberty. The beginning is insidious, with gradual 
weakening of attention, sluggish association of ideas, and 
marked indifference. The disorder proceeds by slow, but 
inevitable, stages to a general and profound intellectual 
enfeeblement.^ 

Developmental Retardation. — Dementia prascox is a 
breaking down of mental life, a form of insanity — at least 
in the opinion of most writers. More common at adolescence, 
however, are certain forms of mental disorder which are due 
to functional disturbances or to lack of complete adaptation 
to the demands of mature life. The concept of arrested de- 
velopment as applied to the lowest grades of intelligence — 
the idiot, the imbecile, and the moron — is familiar to all. 

1 For further details, consult textbooks on insanity, e.g. J. R. de Fursac, 
Manual of Psychiatry (trans, by A. J, Rosanoff), New York, 191 1, Chap. VIII. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolesce^ice 293 

What is less well known is the existence of analogous arrests, 
retardations, or deviations from normal mental development 
in the adolescent period. In fact, so intricate are these 
phenomena that this chapter of clinical psychology remains 
as yet largely unwritten. It is safe, however, to assert that 
the reconstruction of attitudes and interests that constitutes, 
as we have seen, the real psychology of adolescence may ex- 
hibit all degrees of incompleteness. The reconstruction is 
at bottom a reconstruction of feeling rather than of intellect, 
and in consequence the retardations and arrest of develop- 
ment attributable to the period make themselves evident 
more often in an inadequacy of adjustment to the widening 
demands of life or in an unhealthy attitude toward these 
demands than in insufficiency of intelligence. The defects 
are defects of will and of feeling. There is lack of normal 
social adaptation. Most of the chronic cases of neurasthenia 
and psychasthenia and even of the more serious mental dis- 
ruptions of hysteria are cases of arrested or retarded mental 
development. Intellectual development may have been ad- 
equate, but action — complete, efficient, and socially adapted 
action — has not been attained. The clash of instinctive 
tendencies has not resolved into harmonious conduct. The 
feelings are similarly disjointed. These individuals, whose 
final attainment of mental maturity is thus frustrated, are 
impressionable, emotional, unstable ; they may be timid 
or domineering, fawning or stubborn, self-effacing or self- 
conscious, egotistical, finical, often with tendencies not un- 
like those that usher in dementia prascox — seclusive, shy, 
dreamy, brooding over failure, given to sexual or other ru- 
minating, self-deception, and superficial moralizing.^ " The 
neuroses," says Pierre Janet, the eminent French authority, 

1 See Adolph Meyer, What do Histories of Cases of Insanity teach us con- 
cerning Preventive Mental Hygiene during the Years of School Life ? Psych. 
Clinic, 2: June 15, 1908, 89-101; also E. B. Huey, Retardation and the 
Mental Examination of Retarded Children. Jour, of Psycho- Asthenics , 15 : 
1910, 31-43. 



294 Principles of Secondary Education 

" appear almost always at the ages in which the organic and 
mental transformation is the most accentuated. They almost 
always begin at puberty." ^ 

Higher Retardations as a School Problem. — The problem 
set for our school system by the existence of these higher 
grades of mental retardation is clear enough in theory, though 
as yet difficult in practice. There must be worked out some 
adequate system of diagnostic tests whereby, for a given in- 
dividual, the fact of such retardation may be definitely es- 
tablished and its level definitely ascertained. Such a system 
of tests must be worked out by the research departments of 
applied psychology in universities, pubKc school systems, and 
institutions for defectives. Along with these tests must be 
developed the clinical histories of numerous cases, so that 
we may in time know the early danger signals. 

Whether by prescription of some regimen of mental hygiene, 
by more careful regulation of environmental conditions, or, 
perhaps, by recourse to the therapeutic measures of Freudian 
psychology, we may overcome these adolescent arrests of 
development, or whether, as the analogy of those earlier 
arrests of childhood would suggest, these later arrests are 
likewise due at bottom to hereditary, or at least to congenital, 
taint, it is perhaps too soon now to say. It ought at least 
to be possible to prescribe a mode of life and a sphere of 
activity in which these retarded minds may work happily 
and with all the efficiency they possess. 

Adolescent Criminality. — Statistics show a sudden in- 
crease at puberty in the commission of crimes. From lo to 
13 years, lying, stealing, and vagabondage are the typical 
youthful offenses. Crimes against persons and those which 
combine violent passion with moral obtuseness make their 
appearance in later adolescence. 

Causes. — Criminologists have advanced various explana- 

^ See his Qu'est-ce qu'une nevrose. Rev. scientifique, January 30, 1909, 129- 
138. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 295 

tions for adolescent criminality, some of which are 
surely far-fetched and hasty generalizations ; such, for in- 
stance, as the assertion that all pubescent girls have a natural 
propensity for pyromania. Other t}^es of monomania are 
described in this extremist literature and assigned to various 
stages of mental development. The causes of criminality 
are both individual and social, i.e. both internal and external. 
It is certainly possible for the social factors to work alone ; 
contact with new industrial and financial problems, weaken- 
ing of parental control and other environmental circumstances 
may cause an adolescent whose mental equipment is entirely 
normal to commit crime. However, we may add to this 
that normality in adolescence does include a transition through 
a yeasty stage of physical and mental upheaval which is 
sufficient to account for a great many minor trespasses. 
Lawlessness, impulsive misconduct, the sowing of the pro- 
verbial " wild oats," and even passionate outbreaks may ap- 
pear as transient phases of the mental and moral adjustment 
of the period, so that moral delinquency in adolescence does 
not necessarily imply confirmed criminality.-^ 

On the other hand, there are cases of criminality which 
can be traced to individual factors which are really abnormal. 
A youth who, from adolescent arrest, has failed to make ade- 
quate social adaptation, has doubtless within him a predis- 
position toward non-social acts which needs only the stimulus 

1 If the " gentle reader " has himself never strayed from the path of legal 
rectitude, let him read Swift's account (Some Criminal Tendencies of Boyhood ; 
a Study in Adolescence, Fed. Sem., 8 : 1901, 65-91), wherein several dozen college 
professors, normal school teachers, lawyers, ministers, dentists, merchants, and 
other respectable citizens confess to adventures, truancy, fighting, robbing 
orchards, stealing watermelons, old iron, and money, breaking car windows, 
lying and other offenses of their juvenile and adolescent days. Swift goes so 
far as to conclude, I think rather rashly, that "there can hardly be any doubt 
that there is a time in the life of every normal boy when primitive impulses, the 
reverberation of savage life, carry him on, with almost resistless fury, toward a 
life of crime. When to these native impulses there is joined an environment 
favorable to crime, there can be little hope for successful resistance." 



296 Principles of Secondary Education 

of circumstances to show itself in criminality. Moreover, 
it is not unreasonable to believe that the increased complexity 
of modern civilization makes social adaptation more difficult, 
so that this, taken in conjunction with a less strict family 
life, less strenuous emphasis upon moral training, earlier 
personal liberty, the greater predominance of urban life, the 
prominence given to crime in the newspaper, and the apparent 
weakening of the rehgious sentiment, may account for what 
is generally acknowledged to be an increasing precocity in 
crime and an increasing proportion of youthful criminals. 

Remedies. — The remedies must doubtless be sufficieijtly 
varied to counteract these varied factors — partly social, 
industrial, and economic, partly individual, moral, and educa- 
tional. Particularly in the case of adolescent criminality 
should the attempt be made to reform the offender himself.^ 

That systematic and persistent efforts at moral and re- 
ligious training do have a direct and measurable effect in 
reducing criminal tendencies seems to have been established 
by an important investigation, as yet unpublished, carried 
on at the University of Illinois under the direction of Dr. 
W. C. Bagley, to whom I am indebted for an account of the 
conclusions. From this study it appears that those rehgious 
bodies that lay most stress on the moral training of their 
members are represented by the fewest number, relatively, 
of convictions for crime. 

Of special interest in this connection are the ten principles 
of the " Credo " of Mr. George, whose long personal experi- 
ence with the boys and girls of criminal tendencies in the 
Junior Republic entitles him to speak with authority. These 
principles may be paraphrased from Mr. George's words ^ as 
follows: (i) Normal, healthy boys are pretty much alike, 

^ For a good discussion of this problem, consult G. L. Duprat, La Criniina- 
lite dans V Adolescence. Paris, 1909. 

2 W. R. George, The Junior Republic: its History and Ideals. New York, 
1910. See especially the last chapter. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 297 

the world over, regardless of class or social condition. 
(2) Hero worship, dare-deviltry, love of praise, curiosity, 
comradeship, and lawlessness are fundamental components 
of boy nature. (3) Superabundant physical energy is bound 
to find an outlet somehow. (4) These mental and physical 
traits, coupled with the care-free condition of youth, make 
more or less inevitable a " vigorous crop of wild oats dur- 
ing the ' teens.' " (5) This " transit of fool's hill " is ter- 
minated, for the average boy, only when he comes to feel 
responsibility for him.self or for others, when, in other words, 
he becomes " a World's Worker." (6) There are two sorts 
of these workers, those who do right for right's sake, and 
those who do right for pohcy's sake. (7) Opposed to the 
workers are the lawless, who are youths still in their teens, or 
maturer individuals who have not yet felt the saving shock of 
responsibility. (8) The workers come to forget their own 
wild oats and are too apt to have no sympathy for misde- 
meanors of the lawless ; so they demand a System for their 
reformation. (9) The System, which in the concrete is known 
as Prison, Reformatory, etc., is unnatural and un-American, 
and it fails of its purpose because it neglects the individual 
for whom it was devised. (10) The only remedy for this 
failure is the organization of such a community or village 
as the Junior Republic, wherein is incorporated the oppor- 
tunity to learn the essential lesson of responsibility. 

INTELLECTUAL GROWTH IN ADOLESCENCE. — Our 
study of the mental traits of adolescence has been confined 
thus far very largely to the sphere of instinct and feehng. 
The intellectual development of the period and its relations 
to high school teaching now merit brief consideration. Many 
careful observers believe that there is a period of a year or 
so just at puberty when children, especially girls, show a sur- 
prising and irritating stupidity. If this observation be cor- 
rect, it would seem to be connected in some way with the 
physical alterations of the period, as if brain growth stagnated 



298 Principles of Secondary Education 

while the body was undergoing transformation for the func- 
tion of maturer years. 

In the main, however, adolescence is characterized by the 
attainment of the final stages of efficiency in different mental 
capacities ; memory span, for example, reaches its maximum 
at 16 or 17. Again, the development during this period of 
numerous collateral neurones in the central nervous system 
agrees with the evident increase of capacity for complexly 
organized association systems, so that the adolescent can 
deal with more elaborate and difficult concepts than the 
child. As his critical ability and capacity for independent 
thinking increases, there is a modicum of truth in the common 
notion that "reason" is an adolescent, rather than a juvenile 
" faculty." 

To attempt to organize high school work upon the basis of 
a psychology of adolescence alone seems, however, to be an 
impossible undertaking, because the selection of subject 
matter and of methods and pace of instruction is largely 
governed by other factors, not the least of which is the domi- 
nating influence of college entrance requirements and the 
general acceptance by secondary school authorities of the 
idea that all students should follow the same methods and 
pace within any given subject as are followed by other pupils 
who are taking the subject in preparation for college. We 
may state here, however, a number of principles which seem 
to be justified by psychological and pedagogical research. 

The Problem of Formal Discipline. — In the discussion 
of the organization of high school work (p. 222) it has been 
urged that no subject deserves to be retained in the curriculum 
whose sole or whose primary sanction is the mental discipline 
it affords. It remains to set forth more clearly the grounds 
for this principle. 

In the elementary school the issue of formal discipline is 
scarcely raised at all : some subjects are studied for their 
direct value as sources of information ; other subjects, like 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 299 

reading and writing, though sometimes referred to as " formal " 
studies, are pursued for their intrinsic usefulness and not 
for their formal discipline in the sense of indirect mental train- 
ing. In the high school, on the contrary, nearly all subjects 
in the curriculum are espoused or defended not only for their 
direct, but also for their indirect, formal value; indeed, the 
discipUnary worth may be put foremost in the argument for 
their inclusion in the curriculum. Thus, the study of high 
school mathematics, though urged in some degree for its in- 
trinsic value as information, e.g. usefulness in professional, 
industrial, and like activities, is often still more emphatically 
urged as a means for training concentration of attention, 
accuracy, and power to reason. Similarly, whole courses of 
study have been prescribed with the idea that in that way 
alone could a predetermined type of mental training be se- 
cured (all pupils should take botany for training their powers 
of observation, etc.). 

It is profitable, then, to examine with care the arguments 
advanced for and against this doctrine. The issue necessi- 
tates, first of all, the drawing of a distinction between content 
and form, between information and training in the narrower 
sense. A knowledge of Latin undoubtedly facilitates the 
learning of French, but in what way? In part, obviously, 
because French is a Romance tongue and contains many 
features that closely resemble analogous features in the Latin. 
The French vocabulary comprises numerous terms whose 
roots are derived from the Latin vocabulary. In so far as 
this is the source of the assistance given by the study of Latin 
to the study of French, evidently what is carried over from 
the one study to the other is information, not formal training. 
We may speak in this case of a '' spread " or " transfer " of 
efficiency or ability from one subject to the other, but not in 
the sense of formal discipline. 

Assume, however, that the study of Latin facilitates the 
learning of German or architectural designing or intensive 



300 Principles of Secondary Education 

farming. In these cases there can be relatively httle direct 
carrying over of information as such. The profit for these 
several lines of activity must be in another sphere, and it 
may, in theory, be of two kinds, specific or general. The 
mental training developed by Latin may include certain 
methods or ways of going to work in the handhng of linguistic 
material, in which case there has been gained a specific dis- 
cipline that will be serviceable in the learning of the German 
or of any other language. Or, the mental training in Latin 
may include certain methods or ways of undertaking any 
sort of mental work, e.g. training in concentration of atten- 
tion, in assiduity, in patience, in analyzing complex situations, 
in synthesizing isolated items into a meaningful and ordered 
whole. These latter capacities are evidently instances of 
general discipline, since they are of an order that can function 
in various and varied situations, whether linguistic or non- 
linguistic. 

The work of high school pupils in a given field may, there- 
fore, result, in theory, {a) in the acquisition of information 
which will be of direct service in related fields, {h) in specific 
mental training that will be of service in fields of a like kind, 
or (c) in general mental training which will be of service in 
many and widely divergent fields. It is with these last two 
types of spread or transfer of the effects of special drill that 
we are concerned in the problem of formal discipline. 

The Older View. — The older view of formal discipline 
assumed without much question the existence of a general 
spread of mental training. This view still remains the " com- 
mon-sense " view of the " man-in- the-street." It had its 
support largely in the commonly accepted " faculty " psy- 
chology, according to which the mind is composed of a number 
of faculties — imagination, memory, reasoning, observation, 
and the like — and according to which the carrying on of 
any specific bit of imagining, remembering, reasoning, or ob- 
serving entailed the exercise as a whole of the faculty con- 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 301 

cernecl. Any bit of reasoning, then, would strengthen the 
faculty of reasoning. A second common argument for formal 
discipline rests on the analogy of physical training and exer- 
cise. A man, who by appropriate exercises with a weight 
machine in the gymnasium adds a half inch to the girth of 
his biceps, thereby stores up added power which he can turn 
to use later in chopping down a tree or rowing a boat. A 
third argument for this view calls attention to the relation of 
general ability in the population at large to educational train- 
ing. For example, college graduates are shown by statistics 
to be greatly superior to non-college graduates in making a 
success in life; hence, their success is due to the superior 
training. 

Arguments against It. — These three chief lines of argument 
are refuted by some such arguments as the following. Modern 
psychology denies the existence of the old-fashioned mental 
faculties and substitutes for them the notion of numerous 
very specialized mental functions. There is not one faculty 
of memory, but visual memory, auditory memory, memory 
for faces, memory for poetry, etc.^ The argument from 
physical training, like all arguments from analogy, is weak. 
The biceps is, after all, the same biceps, whether contracted 
for rowing or wood chopping, whereas mind is not so simple 
as muscle, as has just been pointed out. Finally, the argu- 
ment based upon the generally superior performance of per- 
sons subjected to prolonged mental training may be met by 
the assertion that this inference is a post hoc propter hoc fallacy, 
that in truth those who pursue the higher education are a 
group selected by their very inclination and ability to master 
complex issues and employ their minds with larger and more 
difficult problems, that, moreover, they owe their success in 
part to the prestige and distinction attendant upon their 

1 See, in illustration, G. M. Whipple, The Effect of Practice upon the Range of 
Visual Attention and of Visual Apprehension. Jour, of Educ. Psych., i : 1910, 
249-262, especially pp. 258-259. 



302 Principles oj Secondary Ediication 

college career, and in yet greater part to the acquisition of 
highly specialized information along certain professional lines. 
It might even be argued, if one wished to force the retort, 
that college-trained men succeed in spite of their training. 
Or, again, it can be urged that even those who have mastered 
extensive cultural training often exhibit only a limited or 
one-sided efficiency : they may be good in music and poor in 
linguistics, skilled in oratory and poor in mathematics, etc. 

Experimental Studies of Transfer. — So much for arguments. 
The issue of formal discipline, however, has been subjected 
to elaborate experimental study during the past decade. It 
is the outcome of these experiments,^ in fact, that has in- 
fluenced many to entertain a general distrust of the doctrine, 
if not to deny flatly the existence of any transfer of mental 
training. Some of these experiments have concerned what is 
known as bilateral transfer, i.e. the effect of special exercise 
of a sense organ or of a particular movement on one side of 
the body upon the capacity of a corresponding organ or 
movement upon the other side. But the greater part of the 
experiments have concerned the transference of practice-effects 
from one form of mental activity to another. In the typical 
experiment a preliminary trial is made to determine the ability 
of a group of subjects in a given direction, e.g. learning num- 
bers, letters, Italian words, etc. This group is then drilled 
at length in some other activity, e.g. learning nonsense sylla- 
bles, and is finally given a second trial with the original, or 
test material. Other persons are given the two tests with the 
original material, but are not given the intermediate drill. 
If the drilled individuals show much greater final improvement 
in the tested activity than do the " control " or undrilled 
individuals, then it is argued that the drill work did develop 

^ See for a summary of the experimental work, article on formal discipline, 
Cyclop, of Educ, Vol. 2, p. 642 ; S. S. Colvin, Some Facts in Partial Justification 
of the So-called Dogma of Formal Discipline, Univ. of Illinois Bulletin, Vol. 7, 
No. 26, 2d revised edition, Februarj', 1910; W. H. Heck, Mental Discipline 
and Educational Values, 2d ed., 191 1, especially Chap. 3. 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 303 

some kind of capacity that facilitated the test work ; that 
there was, in other words, some kind of transfer of capacity. 

The results of the earlier experiments, e.g. the well-known 
work of James ^ and the Columbia experiments," have been 
generally interpreted as conclusive evidence against formal 
mental training. But these results have been subjected to 
much criticism since their publication, while the trend of 
later experimental work has been much less decidedly against 
sweeping denial of transfer-effects. On the contrary, it 
would be safer to assert that in practically all carefully planned 
experiments, notably in the extensive experiments of Ebert 
and Meumann upon memorizing, an amount of transfer 
is indicated sufficient to receive serious consideration. It is 
true that the opponents of formal discipline have criticized 
with some severity much of the experimental work that has 
seemed favorable to transfer. It would seem safe, however, 
to state that the net result of the experimental work has 
been to discredit any extreme view. Formal disciphne can- 
not be flatly denied, neither can it be regarded as invariably 
and necessarily existent. In some ways, too, the experimental 
work, because it has been for the most part restricted to 
laboratory tests with adults, has left untouched the essential 
educational problem : precisely of what nature and of what 
magnitude is the transfer of mental training under actual 
conditions of school instruction? It cannot be said that 
psychology has at present any satisfactory answer to this 
problem. It remains a matter for future investigation, 
particularly so when we inquire concerning general rather 
than specific discipline. 

To quote from Colvin (p. 17) : "Whether the results are due 
to transfer of identical elements (Thorndike) ; to improve- 

^ Psychology, Vol. i, p. 667. 

^ E. L. Thorndike and R. S. Woodworth, The Influence of Improvement in 
One Mental Function upon the Efficiency of Other Functions. Psych. Review, 
8 : 1901, 247-261, 348-395, 553-564- 



304 Principles of Secondary Education 

ment of habitual methods of recording facts (James) ; to 
training the attention and will-power (Scripture and Davis) ; 
to divesting the essential process of the unessential factors, 
greater habituation and more economical adaptation of atten- 
tion (Coover and Angell) ; to the effective use of mental 
imagery and properly controlled attention (Franker) ; to the 
development of ideals (Bagley and Ruediger) ; to general 
improvement in technique of learning, attention and will- 
power, but chiefly to a sympathetic interaction of allied 
memory functions (Ebert and Meumann), or to some other 
factors as yet not analyzed out, may still be a matter of 
investigation and debate. My own personal opinion is that 
practically all of these are more or less important elements in 
the transfer." 

Conclusions hased upon Adults may not apply to Children. — ■ 
There remain to be mentioned two or three features of this 
problem which, in the writer's judgment, are apt to be lost 
sight of in the discussion. One is that conclusions reached 
with adults, especially with adults already trained in mental 
activity, may not apply to untrained adults and still less to 
children, whose mental habits are not yet matured. Ex- 
perimental work performed upon school children at Ithaca, 
and soon to be published,^ has shown an apparent gain in 
general mental efficiency on the part of school children sub- 
jected to special formal drill in visual apprehension that is 
quite in contrast to the absence of such general effects on the 
part of adults tested in the laboratory. 

Negative Transfer. — Another feature which has been 
clearly brought out in experiments is that the mental " set " 
or " attitude " developed by a particular form of drill work 
may hinder rather than facilitate the performance of certain 
other mental activities. There may result, for example, 
what is known as '' interference " of associations, or " negative 
transfer." Thus, drill in precise expressive reading may 
conceivably be carried far enough to operate against the ac- 

^ K. M. Dallenbach, Jour, of Educ. Psych. June and September, 1914. 



Psychology mid Hygiene of Adolescence 305 

quisition of high speed " skimming " in reading, so desirable 
for many phases of adult work. Again, if high school geom- 
etry does train the pupil to reason correctly, it is possible that 
it unfits him to carry on reasoning about the complex matters 
of daily life in which contingency, qualification, and neces- 
sity of appraisement of conditions replace the cut-and-dried, 
right-or-wrong type of reasoning of the geometrical theorem. 
The Teacher as a Factor. — Finally, another feature, too 
often lost sight of, is that the disciplinary values that do exist 
actually inhere less in the subject matter itself than in the 
method by which it is presented, so that the skill and insight 
of the teacher are perhaps more important than the subject 
matter taught. High school mathematics, for instance, may 
be so taught as to emphasize memoriter activities, or pro- 
cesses of proof, or yet other phases, such as the "feel " for 
geometrical relations. Similarly, a desirable mental attitude 
of cautiousness in drawing conclusions from scanty data 
might be developed by one teacher in biology and by another 
in the study of Latin. Let the reader attempt to appraise 
his own possessions of this sort, and then let him try to de- 
cide just when and in what subject he secured the drill that 
made him diligent, neat, punctual, keenly observant, rational 
in argumentation, capable of intellectual concentration, quick 
to grasp the merits of an issue, prone to see both sides of every 
question, assiduous in following all problems to their con- 
clusion, fertile in imagination, resourceful in an emergency, 
and so on to the end of his virtues. He will find it difficult 
or impossible, so automatic and ingrained are these attitudes 
and tendencies in adults, to analyze them into clearly con- 
scious mental habits or ideals, or to say with any certainty 
when or how they were acquired in the course of his school 
training, or whether, indeed, they may not have developed 
as simple functions of maturity. Yet these are the things 
that are set forth as the definite and positive results of study- 
ing this or that high school subject. 



3o6 Principles of Secondary Education 

In conclusion, then, the best rule that can be laid down is : 
no subject should be introduced into the curriculum for the 
sake of its formal training alone, but every subject should be 
so taught as to secure from it all possible drill in correct 
methods of thinking and worthy ideals of mental action.^ 

Alleged Inadequacies of High School Science. — The choice 
of material and type of presentation in high-school science 
does not accord well with the natural inclinations and in- 
terests of adolescents. There is over-insistence upon technical 
nomenclature. There is over-insistence upon quantitative 
and mathematical treatment, especially in physics and chem- 
istry. In biology, morphology, analysis, and the study of 
structure is stressed too much to the neglect of the d3mamic 
and the functional. Such, at least, are the conclusions of 
Stanley Hall,^ who believes that these tendencies devitalize 
and dehumanize science, and who would substitute a genetic 
order of approach with four main stages: ist, acquaintance 
with simple, primitive, mythical men and poetic interpreta- 
tions of nature ; 2d, popular science, like the material pub- 
lished in the Scientific American or Popular Mechanics — 
box-kites, photography, moving pictures, wireless telegraphy, 
etc. ; 3d, applied science and the utilitarian aspects seen in 
various branches of technology, economic geology and botany, 
mechanical and electrical engineering ; 4th, pure science, or 
science for science's sake, to be pursued last of all and to be 
relegated for the most part to the college and university. 
Recent tendencies in high school science have in some measure 
incorporated these recommendations, though it has seemed 
impossible to adopt them fully, even were it agreed that in- 
struction should always follow that order of presentation 

1 For further discussion of the subject, consult, in addition to the references 
cited, the symposium on formal discipline by Angell, Pillsbury, and Judd, Educ. 
J?e7)., June, igo8 ; the second symposium by Delabarre, Henderson, and Home, 
Education, May, 1909; W. C. Bagley, The Educative Process, Chap. 13. 

2 Adolescent Feelings toward Nature and a New Education in Science, 
Adolescence, II, Chap. 12. 



Psychology and Hygiejie of Adolescence 307 

suggested by genetic psychology. Does our science teaching, 
one may ask, really " arrest and mutilate the soul of adoles- 
cence by prematurely forcing it into the mental mold of 
grown-ups " ? 

Linguistic Interests. — The common practice of beginning 
a foreign language in the first high school or last grammar 
school year receives endorsement from studies which indicate 
at puberty a new interest in linguistic expression, a desire 
to augment one's vocabulary.^ Since this interest is an in- 
terest in the use of words in actual expression, it would seem 
that a spoken language, like French or German, would be a 
more natural thing to study at this time than a written 
language like Latin. On the other hand, the question may 
fairly be raised as to why any one of these languages should 
be taken up by secondary school students, at least by those 
who are not to continue them in college. While this is not 
the place to discuss educational values of the high school 
branches, it may be pointed out that few high school grad- 
uates gain much acquaintance through their linguistic work 
with the literature, history, or civilization represented by the 
foreign tongue, that practically none of them cares to, or 
can, either read or speak Latin, French, or German after 
graduation, that the increase in familiarity with English 
etymology and English grammar gained through foreign 
language study is not noteworthy in comparison with the 
time that is devoted to it, and that the improvement of Eng- 
lish style and diction by exercises of translation is secured 
only when very competent teachers make persistent efforts 
in that direction. 

Literary Interests. — Most adolescents have at some time 
during their secondary school days what they term a " craze 
for reading." Since sensational and trashy books are often 

1 It has even been argued that the use of slang by girls in early adolescence is 
a phase of this desire ; see Lillie WiUiams, Interest of Children in Words, Fed. 
Sem., g : 1902, 274. 



3o8 Principles of Secondary Education 

read for want of a proper notion of what is worth while, parents 
and teachers should utilize this opportunity to cultivate 
literary taste and protect boys and girls from what are really 
vicious forms of the '' reading habit." Lancaster took a census 
of the type of reading preferred by adolescents and found the 
preferences to be in the order: novels, 812 votes, poetry 797 
(which is perhaps unexpectedly and suggestively high), es- 
says 67, history 37, travel 30. 

Art Interests. — ^ As has already been pointed out (p. 262), 
interest in art — music, drama, architecture, painting, etc. — ■ 
is decidedly augmented during adolescence. In some, prob- 
ably in most, the interest is but transient; but in the truly 
gifted, notable progress is made during adolescence both in- 
tellectually, in the understanding of art and developm^ent of 
taste, and emotionally, in a richer feeling for the esthetic. 
The school cannot afford to neglect this phase of cultural 
training. Even in intentionally utilitarian types of secondary 
school, e.g. high schools of agriculture, those who plan the 
curriculum should remember that bread-and-butter winning 
is but a part of life. Psychologists have shown how the play 
of children is normally replaced in later years by some form of 
artistic activity, be it music, painting, some form of decora- 
tive or plastic art, or other recreative handicraft in which the 
esthetic instinct may find expression. 

COEDUCATION. — A final word may be said on the bear- 
ing of the physical and mental features of adolescent develop- 
ment upon the problem of coeducation. It should be made 
clear at the outset that coeducation does not necessarily mean 
co-instruction. One may be convinced from sociological and 
economic considerations that youths and maidens should 
study the same subjects, but conclude from physiological 
and psychological reasons that they should study them in 
separate classes or in separate schools. In cities where more 
than one high school is imperative there has often been found 
an advantage in making the separation by sex rather than on 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 309 

geographical or other bases. In other schools it has been 
found worth while to adopt a system of partial segregation. 
A typical illustration is afforded by the practice at the Engle- 
wood High School/ where boys and girls have recited in 
separate classes and the work has been adapted to the 
interests and needs of the two sexes. It is stated that 
four years' trial has resulted in a striking increase in attend- 
ance, and in a marked improvement of scholarship, especially 
of the boys. Moreover, a majority of the pupils — 60 to 
96 per cent of the girls and 87 to 100 per cent of the boys 
in various classes ^ — -have declared themselves in favor of the 
plan. 

The chief arguments for a different curriculum for the two 
sexes are sociological and relate to what is felt to be the funda- 
mental difference between the prospective future lines of 
activity of boys and of girls. Particularly, it is urged that 
the majority of girls are destined to careers in which the home 
will be the center of interest and that their high school train- 
ing should, accordingly, be directed mainly toward this end. 
Coeducation renders it impossible properly to differentiate 
the school work in this way. Counter arguments assert that 
modern conditions indicate, on the contrary, the necessity 
for identical training of the sexes, that thousands of girls 
enter upon occupations for which they need the same training 
as boys, and that, even if the majority are destined ultimately 
to domestic activities, they need, as wives and mothers, the 
same cultural training and the same general background of 
information as their husbands and children. 

Into the merits of these several arguments this is not the 
place to go.^ If we turn to the arguments from psychology 
and physiology, they are found to reduce in the main to two : 
first, that men and women are physically and mentally funda- 

^ J. E. Armstrong, The Advantages of Limited Sex Segregation in the High 
School. Sdi. Rev., i8 : 1910, 339-350. 

2 Consult article Coeducation in Cyclopedia of Education. 



3IO Principles of Secondary Education 

mentally different ^ — so different that they need different 
mental and physical training, so different that no amount of 
identical training can equate them.^ Second, that adolescent 
girls are handicapped by their physical constitution, so that 
it is a crime to attempt to put them through the course of 
training that is suited to adolescent boys.^ It is no longer 
contended that girls are incapable of doing as much or as 
good work as boys — experience has proved the contrary — 
rather that they compete with boys at the expense of their 
health. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What are the chief problems and the chief factors in the develop- 
ment of the will, especially in adolescence ? 

2. What is the relation of vocation and the vocational motive to 
character ? 

3. Does high school training lead away from manual work ? 

4. What is the relation of the esthetic to the moral ? 

5. What are the moral effects of various studies ? 

6. What educative effect does student self-government or the "honor 
system" have? 

7. What are the educative and the moral values and problems of 
social life — ■ clubs, societies, fraternities, dancing, etc. ? 

1 For an inventory of these differences, see G. T. W. Patrick, The Psychology 
of Woman. Pop. Sci. Mo., 47 : 1895, 209. 

^ This contention, seems somewhat at variance with another frequently heard 
argument against coeducation, viz. : that it does not permit the two sexes to 
develop adequately those qualities which are natural to them ; that it tends to 
make girls too masculine and to effeminate boys. On the other hand it is urged 
in reply that coeducation exerts a desirable disillusionizing influence and tends 
to make the relations between the sexes more wholesome, that there is really no 
more reason for separating the sexes in the classroom than in the drawing- 
room. 

^ As the phrase goes, we " spoil a good mother to make a poor grammarian." 
This, which might be termed the medical argument, is found in a host of articles. 
For references and further discussion see Hall, Adolescence, also his Youth. 
One of the earliest and most discussed books on this theme is E. H. Clarke's 
Sex in Education, or a Fair Chance for Girls (Boston, 1873). A reply to Clarke 
will be found in Geo. F. and Anna M. Comfort, Woman's Education and 
Woman's Health. 1874, 



Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence 311 

8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of coeducation in the 
high schools ? Of partial segregation ? Of separate schools ? 

9. What is the relation of sex hygiene to general education ? How 
should the problem of instruction in sex hygiene be handled ? 

10. What progress has been made in the solution of this problem ? 

11. What is the relation to character formation of athletics; inter- 
scholastic contests ; physical training ? 

12. What loss is there of individuality and initiative, and hence moral 
intelligence, through the pressure of custom and fashions ? 

13. What is the moral effect in high school of college ideals and 
fashions ? 

14. What relation does the size of a school have to the attainment of 
moral results ? 

1 5. What are the sources of moral influence on the part of the teacher ? 

16. Make a study of great teachers of youth : Vittorino, Loyola, 
Arnold of Rugby, Thring of Uppingham ; Mark Hopkins ; etc. 

17. What is the value and what are the best forms of religious exercises 
and instruction ? 

18. What is the ethical value of the study of current social and economic 
movements ? 

REFERENCES 

BuRK, F. S. Growth of Children in Height and Weight. Am. Jour. 
Psych., 1898, pp. 253-326. 

Berry, Frances May D. On the Physical Examination of London 
School Children and the Prevalence of Albuminuria. I. Inter- 
nationale Kongress fur Schulhygiene, Niirnberg, April, 1904, Band 
HI, pp. 421-425. 

BuRNHAM, William H. The Study of Adolescence. Ped. Sem. 1891, 
Vol. I, No. 2, pp. 174-195. 

Clouston, Thomas S. Hygiene of Mind. London, 1906. 284 pp. 
Neiiroses of Development; being the Morison lectures for 1890. 
London, 1891, 138 pp. 

Crampton, C. Ward. Anatomical or Physiological Age versus Chrono- 
logical Age. Ped. Sem. June, 1908. Vol. XV, pp. 230-237. 

Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence, 2 vols. New York, 1907. 

Youth. New York, 1906. A resume of the pedagogical aspects of 
adolescence. 

King, Irving. The High School Age. 233 pp. Indianapolis, 1914. 

Lancaster. Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence. Ped. Sem., 
1897, PP- 61-128. 



312 Principles of Secondary Education 

Lemaitre. La Vie Mentale de P Adolescent, et ses Anomalies. Paris, 1910. 

Marro, a. La Pubertd. 507 pp. Bocca, Torino, 1897. French 
translation. La Puberte. Paris, 1902. This deals chiefly with the 
physiological side of the subject. 

Meyer, Adolf. What do Histories of Cases of Insanity Teach Us Con- 
cerning Preventive Mental Hygiene during the Years of School Life ? 
Psych., Clinic. June 15, 1908. Vol. II, No. 4, pp. 89-101. 

Moll, A. Sexual Life of the Child. 339 pp. New York, 191 1. 

Scott, Colin. Social Education. Boston, 1908. 

Slaughter, J. W. The Adolescent, in pp. London, 1911. 

Starbuck, E. H. Psychology of Religion, especially the sections dealing 
with conversion. New York, 1901. 

Swift, E. J. Mind in the Making, 329 pp. New York, 1908. 

Tyler, J. M. The Laws of Growth and Development. New York, 1906. 
For physiological and abnormal phases of the subject, the reader 
should also refer to the works of Havelock Ellis and Freud. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

HOW THE WILL GROWS 

WILL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH WILL ACTION. 

— The character of the individual is little changed by what he 
merely undergoes: Herbart long ago called attention to the re- 
markable fact that physical agony, even though intense and long 
continued, may leave the character essentially unchanged; men 
rise from the most serious bodily accidents and illnesses the 
same in opinions, manners, and morals. It is what the individ- 
ual himself resolves and does that forms new habits and 
attitudes and so essentially modifies character. " Those 
things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the 
heart, and they defile a man "; no less do such things, when 
good, ennoble a man. In both cases the things that proceed 
from the heart — i.e. the will — leave their mark on charac- 
ter. Mere external compliance is futile in producing habits, 
principles, or ideals. The literature on moral education is 
always echoing the cry of the German teacher of religion, when 
his most recalcitrant pupil passes the most brilliant examina- 
tion. " Why, he know it all! " the examiner cries. " Yes, but 
he believes none of it! "retorts the discomfited but unconvinced 
teacher. 

In one way it is a mere truism to say that will power and 
righteousness grow by exercise of will, and in no other way. 
There would be no excuse for dwelling upon the principle if it 
were not that it is sweepingly ignored in practice; both the 
principle itself, and the prevailing disregard of it in our edu- 
cational practice are admirably expressed by Professor Dewey : 
" No one seriously questions that, with an adult, power and 

3^3 



314 Principles of Secondary Education 

control are obtained through realization of personal ends and 
problems, through personal selection of means and materials 
which are relevant, and through personal adaptation and 
application of what is thus selected, together with whatever 
of experimentation and of testing is involved in this effort. 
Practically every one of these three conditions of increase in 
power for the adult is denied for the child. For him problems 
and aims are determined by another mind. For him the mate- 
rial that is relevant or irrelevant is selected in advance by 
another mind." . . } 

We may well be apprehensive of an education that occupies 
the adolescent youth with doing what some one tells him to do, 
and confers its highest rewards and commendations without 
regard to independence or originaHty of either intellect or will; 
and, moreover, compels him to employ his school hours with 
so-called studies (far indeed from the true sense of the old 
Latin word) the very meaning and use of which he does not 
comprehend and often profoundly doubts. Such education 
can form only a will that is dependent, unstable, void of 
self-reHance and initiative: not necessarily lacking in mere 
force or violence, but devoid of the sole supreme mark of 
a mature or maturing will, a self-existing and self-sustaining 
purpose. 

Hence it is that the boy's actual will training is almost cer- 
tain to take place out of school, and the influences of culture 
and higher thought which the school more than any other 
agency should communicate, fail to penetrate deeper than the 
most superficial layers of memory, and fade into oblivion al- 
most before the expiration of the term in which they are 
studied: and volition, with all its domination over life, is 
determined by business, politics, pleasure, — or on the other 
hand by the stimulus of some upward social movement in the 
larger world. 

^Psychology and Social Practice, p. 128. See also College Students' 
Comments on their own High School Training, School Review, December, 191 2. 



Moral and Religious Education 315 

INTELLECTUAL ASPECT. — Not only does will grow 
only by exercise of will, but intellect also develops most 
effectively under the stimulus of the learner's own self-active 
purpose and volition. Every teacher knows how knowledge 
and intellectual mastery leap forward when the pupil is eager 
to learn. Attention is the absolute sine qua non of new associa- 
tions and so of knowledge and mental power, ^ and attention is 
also in its deepest forms indissolubly linked with voluntary 
action or will.^ So far, then, from true moral training in any 
way detracting from intellectual achievement, the exact oppo- 
site is the case ; if we can enlist the pupil's will in such manner 
as to secure true moral development, we shall also increase 
and wonderfully enhance the progress of the intellectual 
powers. " Since problems of conduct are the deepest and most 
common of all the problems of life," says Professor Dewey, 
" the ways in which they are met have an influence that 
radiates into every other mental attitude, even those remote 
from any direct or conscious moral consideration. Indeed, 
the deepest plane of the mental attitude of every one is fixed 
by the way in which the problems of behavior are treated.^' ^ 

Dr. Kerschensteiner, out of a rich experience in the practical 
problems of public education, declares: " Any training of the 
intellect deserves attention only so far as it rests on the char- 
acter — in a manner it proceeds from the character, because 
the way to the head is opened through the heart.^ As 
things are the pupil may do 'thinking' enough, — or at 
least brow bending and brain racking, — but it is not his 
thinking ; it is done ' for ' Mr. or Miss So-and-so ; it is a hired 
servant's thinking, and has little or no root in the student's 
own mind ; even intellectually this is gravely injurious, as is 
well indicated by the poverty-stricken results in various studies, 

1 McDougall, Physiological Psychology, p. 129. 

^ James, Psychology (Briefer Course), p. 448. Betts, The Mind and Its 
Educatimi, pp. 236-237; M.nn'stQrhQvg, Psychology and the Teacher, pp. 186-187. 
^ How we Think, p. 54. 
^ Education for Citizenship, p. 126. Chicago, 191 1. 



3i6 Principles of Secondary Education 

while in relation to moral culture it is ruinous. This heterono- 
mous intellection leaves behind it no blessed legacy of mental 
power : this is why the college teacher is never done lamenting 
that the high school graduate has not learned to think; and 
no less does the high school teacher pass the condemnation on 
to the elementary grades." 

In other words, the secret of better intellectual results and 
more effective moral training lie very close together, and both 
involve the fuller enlistment and activation of the will of the 
learner. We are anxious to make this point prominent at the 
outset : the advocacy of more attention to the moral aspect of 
education in the secondary period does not involve any diminu- 
tion in intellectual achievement, but quite the opposite. We 
shall certainly reach the conclusion that the interests of the 
moral cultivation will demand some changes in the content of 
the program of studies, but its first and most essential aim is 
the vitalization of whatever the pupil does, including his 
intellectual pursuits ; it demands that in them he shall always 
work at high efficiency, to the limits of his best capacities: 
this is the essence of moral training. The secondary teacher, 
being usually a college or university graduate, is Hkely to be 
primarily concerned for intellectual results, in spite of the 
article in the orthodox pedagogic creed declaring character 
to be the supreme aim of all education. We shall have some 
criticism to pass upon the teacher's intellectualism later: 
here we prefer to make peace with it, by making it clear that 
the first and most fundamental move in better moral training 
will be no less an advance in school pursuits, whether science, 
humanities, or vocational training. 

THE MORAL ELEMENT PERVADES ALL. — Moral 
education, then, is in no sense a branch of education, and the 
attempt to treat it as such is the cause of endless fallacies and 
abuses, as well as most of the disputes and misunderstandings 
on the subject. Still less can itbe a sort of addendum or appen- 
dix to the rest; it is truly the consummation and resultant 



Moral and Religious Education 317 

of all ; it must enlist and employ all the activities of the child. 
The " branches "are all abstractions, each more or less sepa- 
rable, often, alas, isolated; but one thing is always present 
— the child himself — and always becoming what he is to be. 

Least of all can there be a special teacher solely answerable 
for moral training, nor can any teacher of children or youth 
for one moment be absolved or discharged from responsibility 
for the culture of the will. Perhaps no point is more immedi- 
ately vital to the existing secondary school and college situa- 
tion.^ Thus Rousseau says rightly : " There is only one science 
to be taught to children, namely, that of the duties of man." 
The whole task of education is moral; it is the guidance of the 
child into such performance of his own present childish duties 
that he shall grow into consciousness of the duties of his man- 
hood, and into the possession of powers to discharge them. 

THE WILL EXERCISES ON PROBLEMS. — The exer- 
cise of the will, then, demands a task or a problem, and the 
exercise of my will demands that I should have a problem. 
True, it may have been but now any one's problem, but before 
my will, as a real will, can act upon it, I must adopt it and 
make it for the time at least my very own. The true essence 
of moral education is the actual unmitigated and concrete 
operation of the will itself; all else is but preliminary, sub- 
ordinate, auxiliary, and without this ends in nothing or less 
than nothing; other processes are worthy only as instruments 
or aids to arouse the sovereign act itself, or minister to its 
full performance. 

Even at some risk, then, of the fallacies of conciseness, we 
may say that the essential method of moral education consists 
in helping the educand to grasp and solve his own problems, 
and to advance from those which he has by nature and through 
the stimulus of his present environment, to the perception, 

^ This does not, however, at all dispose of the question of moral or ethical 
lessons, with a place in the course of study and on the daily and weekly sched- 
ule. 



3i8 Principles of Secondary Education 

adoption, and solution of the problems of his mature life in 
society. 

The multifarious and confusing miscellany of ways and 
means in moral education, of methods, plans, decrees, instruc- 
tion, and discipline, here find their unity, and their only possi- 
ble justification. The test question must always be: What 
will aid the educand to solve his problems aright and move 
toward new ones, and so approach the perfected will ? The 
fact is that just as in instruction the golden rule is, " Unless 
the mind of the learner works, all is in vain " — so in training, 
discipline, moral education of every kind, it is, " Unless the 
will of the educand acts all is in vain." Hence, just as instruc- 
tion must wait upon and stimulate interest, will training 
operates through problems and action. 

THE SOURCES OF ENERGY. — Another aspect of the 
question must be examined: character is character only by 
virtue of being endued with power, with dynamic force to 
enact itself against resistance. Hence moral training, as 
contrasted with mere intellectual or aesthetic culture, must 
needs make connection with the sources of energy in the 
educand. But the existence of a problem in the mind is 
exactly the best evidence of will energy ready to be released as 
soon as the appropriate channel or direction is determined. 
The youth is deliberating what he shall do : the very cause of 
the mental state is the underlying dynamic state. The per- 
sistency and intensity with which the problem holds the atten- 
tion is a measure of the amount of potential energy stored 
behind it. Hence, if we can only discover the problem, we 
have located the forces demanded in the make-up of character. 

Moreover, the personal relation of the teacher to his pupils 
is never so favorable and effective as when he helps them to 
solve their own problems ; suspicion and aloofness are ban- 
ished, the pupil's mind is open and eager, his heart is receptive 
and cordial, the teacher becomes truly what he so deeply 
desires to be, " guide, philosopher, and friend." One of the 



Moral and Religious Education 319 

most convincing collateral evidences of the correctness of this 
method of moral education is found in the countless actual 
cases of all shades and varieties, where a teacher or adviser 
does succeed in getting hold of the pupil and changing his 
conduct and his character just by showing him that a prob- 
lem of his own is involved in the situation, and that for him 
the vital point is the solution of that problem. The idle boy 
is brought to see the probable effect of his indolence upon his 
own future, and the stern necessity of fostering a new habit of 
work ; the disorderly or insubordinate is shown the larger 
social self, himself as he ought to be, and is awakened to culti- 
vate that enhanced self; the youth who is set on leaving school 
against his parents' will comes to see that his life problem 
cannot be solved or even worked at without reckoning in those 
parents, their happiness and welfare. Let any one read any 
story of influence, Arnold at Rugby, Thring at Uppingham, 
Stableton in his little Diary of a Western Schoolmaster, 
Judge Lindsey, Wilham G. George, dealing with normal or 
pathological cases, and he will find, practically without excep- 
tion, that the method of success was to help the child to find 
and deal with his own problem, and so discover and confirm 
his true self. 

THE BROADENING OF SYMPATHY. — Possibly, some 
one may apprehend egoism or individualism in such moral 
training, but this can only be on a superficial view; in the 
natural development of a human being his problems broaden 
to include more and more others ; his affections widen as well 
as his knowledge, and wherever his affections fix themselves, 
there his problem is found. The larger social self grows by a 
process of development ; even in infancy egoism is far froin 
being sole determinant of thought and action, and in all 
healthy growth the narrower self is soon overgrown by a true 
human heart and will. All of this should become clearer as 
we consider the actual problems of youth, which is, par ex- 
cellence, the era of socialization. 



320 Principles of Seco7idary Education 

Perhaps we are fortunate in having to deal with adolescent 
youth, for even those who might think the foregoing state- 
ments extreme if applied to the training of small children 
can surely agree to their truth in respect to young people 
treading on the verge of manhood and womanhood, the vast 
majority of whose fellows of equal age have indeed already 
left the school for good and are doing adult work in the 
world.^ 

One word of caution: the doctrine that we must train the 
will of the student through his own problems does not in the 
least imply that we are to abandon him to his own whims and 
caprices nor that his training is to be soft and indulgent; on 
the contrary, it demands that his real forces, now often 
squandered on specious and trivial pursuits which delude 
his immature and unaided vision, shall instead be devoted 
to the tasks which really lie along the true path of his growth 
and destiny; he will generate more energy, and apply it far 
more effectively than under any other system of training: he 
will work harder, endure more toil and hardship, overcome more 
obstacles, and vitalize and toughen his moral fiber, far beyond 
the measure of any forced and alien compulsion: and his 
powers will be his own, and will already be enlisted and 
organized under the command of his own purpose, indeed, in 
the cases of highest success, under the supreme leadership of 
the greatest and final phase of the will, a worthy Kfe aim. 

THE PROBLEMS OF YOUTH 

WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS ? — The first task of moral 
education, then, is to penetrate the heart of youth and there 
discover its real problems. To what themes does his mind 
turn easily, naturally, irresistibly, as the needle turns to the 
pole ? What are his uncompelled cogitations, his freest 

1 See J. K. Hart, A Critical Study of Current Theories of Moral Education, 
p. 36. 



Moral and Religious Education 321 

thoughts ? To what does his inner consciousness swing in repose, 
or even against the external calls of duty, of work, of study, of 
parental, pedagogical, or occupational pressure ? Above all, 
what is he anxious and concerned about, what is he eager to 
achieve or compass, in what does he think to find joy, and in 
what does he dread to endure loss and failure? To the dis- 
covery of these secret currents of the souls of youth must we 
devote all our sympathy, . and no less all our wisdom, even 
shrewdness. And this not merely to indulge these native 
tendencies ; certainly not, as is too much the fashion, to laugh 
at them ; not even to be content with them as they are ; but to 
utilize them. They are the data of the will, the sources of 
both power and direction. Out of them, or out of nothing, 
must the full-grown human will develop. We are dealing 
here, as it were, with the natural history of the adolescent 
will.i 

The scientific treatment of such a field is infinitely difficult 
and is certainly as yet in its infancy. Adolescence is the high 
point of modesty and reticence. This need by no means 
surprise us, inasmuch as the two most prolific sources of the 
inner consciousness and problems of youth are, as we shall see 
more fully later, the sentiment of self, and the new elements 
of sex life, both of which are exceedingly affected by the 
sentiment of modesty. 

SOURCES OF INFORMATION. —What, then, are the 
sources of information as to the consciousness of adolescence ? 
First, the recollections of our own youth; this not only gives 
us the only possible immediate knowledge we can have on the 
subject, secure from all fallacies of communication or interpre- 
tation, but it gives us the clew by which we may grasp and 
interpret all other available knowledge. Probably nothing 
is more invaluable to the teachers of youth than that they 
should themselves have lived a full, rich, and normal adoles- 
cence, and should keep an ever-living memory thereof. Only 
1 Scott, Social Education, pp. 36, 37. 



32 2 Principles of Secondary Education 

thus can we hope for even a beginning of comprehension and 
sympathy for our students.^ 

Of course the students themselves are the second source of 
information. Other knowledge is useful to interpret, check up, 
and perhaps supplement, but this furnishes the real data of 
our problem. The high school teacher needs to study his 
own pupils outside of the classroom work; play of vohtion is 
far fuller and more typical there than in the schoolroom under 
any ordinary conditions. There are rich sources of knowledge 
almost unworked ; for example, athletics and social life. As 
to the former the teachers fall mostly into two classes — some 
preserve an adolescent attitude of uncritical enthusiasm; 
others grow gradually into a sort of jealous hostihty, some- 
times so mild as to appear as mere indifference, sometimes 
very intense. Both classes fail to stady the phenomena in any 
■profitable manner. A conspicuous feature of the social Kfe 
has been the fraternity ; high school workers have devoted 
much earnest thought to the external, administrative problem 
involved, and have been led generally into relentless war upon 
the organizations, sometimes resulting in bitter conflicts re- 
quiring the aid of the courts to settle them. Practically all 
the best friends of the high schools are against the fraternities, 
and agree that the school authorities are right in exterminating 
them. But we have not properly studied the phenomena 
involved, as manifesting in extreme form some of the charac- 
teristic elements of adolescent volition. We must extend our 
inquir}^ beyond the more external symptoms of snobbery, 
insubordination, dissipation, and general deterioration, and 
investigate the impulses and volitional forces, in the individual 
boy and in the group, that underKe and explain the boys' 
intense, almost furious devotion to their society and to the 
fraternity idea. These impulses and forces are in themselves 
good, and need not to be destroyed but to be guided. 

1 On the tendency to forget one's own adolescence, see Hall, Youth, pp. 144- 
145. 



Moral and Religious Education 323 

Doubtless there is some help to be found in literature. The 
immense mass of descriptive and statistical matter in the 
literature of the Hall school will naturally come first to mind. 
Most of us must take it with some caution, and probably in 
rather moderate doses, for the simple reason that it runs much 
to the abnormal and pathological. Yet it is the only consider- 
able effort yet made to study youth by scientific and especially 
by biological methods ; and these methods seem indispensable 
in the study of voHtion. It is safe to say that no earnest 
student of high school education can afford to ignore this 
source. Two books must be mentioned as highly prophetic 
and interpretative, as well as powerfully inspiring — Jane 
Addams' Spirit of Youth and Our City Streets, and Charles 
Wagner's Youth. Then there are accounts of methods of 
dealing with adolescents, and of their responses to these 
methods. The lives of Arnold and Thring are invaluable ; 
before the days of adolescent psychology they perceived and 
utilized the laws of the voHtional Hfe of boys. In our own 
days numerous accounts of boys' clubs, school cities, and 
other juvenile activities, furnish pertinent and often valuable 
data. The George Junior Republic is a fascinating study in 
not-quite-normal adolescence, to be taken, doubtless, with 
some caution ; juvenile court experience is a profitable study. 
Exceedingly valuable in this field are the methods and experi- 
ences recorded in Reeder's How Two Hundred Children Live 
and Learn, and, with still closer relation to school life. Stable- 
ton's Diary of a Western Schoolmaster. 

THE LARGER LIFE. —The school or the teacher who 
thinks only in terms of school reckons without his host. The 
bigger world already has the eye and ear of the youth ; his 
problems are all determined by the forms of life into which 
he feels himself swiftly moving. His most personal ideals are 
meant in the last analysis to conform or to please ; his diver- 
sions are not solitary but love the group or even the crowd ; 
his calHng will be one of the functions that society has ready 



324 Principles of Secondary Education 

made for him ; even his religion will come from the minds and 
hearts of many now living and more who have passed away. 
No less social are the means at the hand of the school for guid- 
ing the youth in solving his problems. It is easy for the edu- 
cator to throw away his labors by building what the rushing 
forces of hfe will sweep quickly away ; — nay, the currents of 
life, unperceived by his academic vision, may be carrying 
away his foundations while he is laying them. 

Our athletic affairs are molded by the national situation; 
the old village green, where the many played and a few old 
folk and infants looked on, has been changed to the baseball or 
football park, where a handful of professionals are exhibited 
in an arena, while thousands sit in pathological super-excite- 
ment, with every normal avenue of expression choked up, and 
all the efferent nerve currents poured into flushed and dis- 
torted faces or furious vociferation. College and high school 
have been drawn into the vortex, and the flower of the young 
men are often sacrificed in one way or another to " make a 
Roman holiday." The incoherent cries of the " fan " are 
organized under the " yell leader," and an athletic liturgy is 
consecrated out of noise. Until society at large awakens to 
the truth of the matter it will be hard to reform athletics and 
rehabilitate physical education in schools and colleges. An 
exceedingly close parallel maybe drawn for social life in general, 
involving such matters as dress, dances, parties, fraternities, 
smoking, and the like. 

On the other hand, the big world is full of constructive forces. 
The people in general are on the side of the right, especially 
when it affects their children's training and future. Business, 
with all its vices, and work, with all its imperfections, are great 
educative forces that have raised man above savagery and 
contributed to the education of all generations. The chief 
vice of the public with reference to the school is ignorance and 
neglect; the great task of the school administrator in this 
respect is to awaken and enlighten public opinion, and enlist 



Moral and Religiotis Education 325 

its aid in maintaining the moral conditions in and out of school 
that are the indispensable ground and support of moral 
education in the school. 

THE POINT OF CONTACT. — The actual point of con- 
tact between educator and educand, the problem itself, and 
the exact form or aspect of the problem, depend greatly upon 
the subtle, indefinable, yet most real relation between the two 
persons concerned. To discover and vitalize this contact is 
the supreme art of influence, in which any large success comes 
only through what may figuratively be called in words of 
Jesus ''fasting and much prayer," that is, deep and self-effacing 
devotion. This is perhaps the reason why so many wise and 
earnest thinkers are unwilling to admit any definite or would-be 
scientific treatment of the problem of moral training, and 
assign everything to the " personality of the teacher." It is 
this also which leads even Herbart, the great prophet of a 
completely mechanized pedagogy, after he has expounded 
all his principles and formulated all his rules, to discuss Tact 
at some length as the indispensable attitude, incommunicable 
and defying all analysis and description, which must guide 
and animate any method whatsoever if real success is to be 
achieved. It would be foolish to deny or belittle the impor- 
tance of personality and tact as emphasized by these and 
similar statements ; but we must resist their more extreme 
forms, and insist on believing in the ultimate possibility of a 
scientific solution of even the problem of moral training, on 
the ground that we are confronted not with an irrational or 
inherently incalculable activity, but only with an exceedingly 
complex one. 

THE GREAT PROBLEMS. — When we undertake any 
descriptive account of the problems of youth, it is easy to 
enumerate concrete and definite things that the adolescent 
undertakes and for which he will labor most strenuously;^ 
" making the team " is perhaps the most striking ; keep- 

^See, for example, Hall, Youth, Chap. 8, Biographers of Youth. 



326 Principles of Secondary Education 

ing his standing with his fellows is another; earning 
money is often another ; very commonly he gives much and 
conscious thought to his personal appearance and dress ; any 
conduct that is considered loyalty to the school can usually 
command his best efforts ; he sometimes, and she oftener, 
will expend great efforts, even to the point of overstrain and 
injury, in order to keep up in scholarship ; and so on through 
an indefinite list. Such things as these are the original data, 
careful observation and description of which are the pre- 
requisite of any scientific treatment. 

While there is much variety of opinion as to details, there is 
general recognition of the idea that these adolescent tendencies 
group themselves largely about four or five great problems ; 
for practical discussion we present a rough outline of these. 

The first is the discovery and perfection of the Self, both 
individual and social, which, in it's broad sense, evidently 
includes all other possible problems ; next amusement, recrea- 
tion, " fun," in a vast variety of forms ; then two that belong 
peculiarly to adolescence : first, relation to the other sex, involv- 
ing sexual hfe itself, love, marriage, and family ; then vocation 
and economic success, rising into the ideal of a life career. 
The fifth great choice is a religion, not at all in the theological 
but in the ethical sense, — something which dominates the 
whole hierarchy of will, forms the object of supreme desire, 
and so assimilates to itself all other motives. These great 
questions are being asked more or less definitely by young 
people everywhere ; nowhere, it is natural to suppose, more 
than in high schools. They may be put into words somewhat 
thus: (i) "What sort of person am I going to be?" (2) 
" How am I going to find my amusement, spend my leisure 
time?" (3) "What attitude am I going to take toward 
women (or men)? " (4) " What shall I do for a living? " 
or more naively, " How am I going to make money? " and 
finally, though far less likely to take any definite or even con- 
scious form, (5) " What am I going to put above everything 
else? What am I going to serve with all my heart? " 



Moral and Religious Education 2)'^j 

THE GREAT DETERMINATIONS 

THE REALIZATION OF THE SELF. — Of the five great 
adolescent will activities only one has been generally recog- 
nized by formal education, that is, the first, self-development 
and perfection ; and this in a comparatively narrow and feeble 
form. Much stress has been laid by the school upon the in- 
tellectual progress of the pupil, and that with constant empha- 
sis upon his remote future welfare and success. Of course 
such an appeal is legitimate and not without effect. But it is 
subject to at least three serious weaknesses : first, the normal 
youth is not yet effectively concerned for his scholastic achieve- 
ment ; second, his will needs not a remote but an immediate 
stimulus ; and third, the youth who most needs guidance 
and stimulus will almost always be least affected by the intel- 
lectual ideal. 

Physique. — On the other hand, the powerful impulse 
toward physical strength, beauty, grace, efficiency, prowess, 
has been allowed to run largely to waste, or even to mihtate 
against the avowed aims of the school.^ The case of school 
athletics is too famiHar to need rehearsal here ; but it is im- 
possible that we should gain our moral ends with high school 
youth unless we avail ourselves of the potent athletic impulse ; 
the early adolescent will make any sacrifices, endure any 
labors, perform the incredible, — as every coach knows, — . 
to demonstrate his manly powers to himself and his fellows. 
The question is no mere physiological one, — a human body 
is a psycho-physical thing ; our most serious loss at present is 
the loss of psychic results obtainable but not obtained from 
physical action. 

The mere catharsis of a vigorous bodily regimen is indis- 
pensable ; every student of boys knows how their " animal 
spirits," — lacking which they would be less than men, — 

1 See G. Stanley Hall, Psychology of Physical Education, Proceedings N.E.A., 
1910, p. 297. 



328 Principles of Secondary Edttcation 

if denied full and free vent in abundant and exhilarating exer- 
cise, break out in disorder, " rough-house," insubordination, 
and even rebellion. And there is probably a far more serious 
evil that eludes most observers, in that the less bold and 
dynamic youth fall into secret vices that sap their forces ere 
they develop ; against self -abuse and degenerating vice in 
general, the most universal safeguard is certainly a bodily 
regimen, vigorous and virile even to excess. A Ufe which sends 
the lad to bed regularly and healthily tired but not exhausted, 
with muscles and nerves and organs purged by abundant 
exercise, gives scant play to any perverted or noxious impulse 
or habit. 

Moreover, great as is this advantage, it is but the negative 
side of the benefits of proper physical regimen ; the positive 
results include a just confidence in one's bodily powers, inval- 
uable balance of the psychic constitution, endurance, courage, 
the physiological basis of optimism. The social values of 
athletic sports, in their normal forms, are too great to discuss 
here ; we do not hesitate to say that one of the first duties of 
curriculum makers is to study earnestly and without prej- 
udice the educative influence of play and recreation. It is 
passing strange that a culture that claims descent from the 
Greeks and professes sincere admiration for their achieve- 
ments should so completely despise the gymnastic element 
that made good half of their training of the young. What 
would the Greeks have thought of a school for adolescents 
that assigned either no single instructor or at best a meager one 
or two in a hundred to the education through bodily exercise ? 
Yet that is the status of our high schools ; even in a progressive 
school, out of fifty teachers it is rare that more than two or 
three are charged with physical culture. Too often even 
these are looked upon as outsiders or underUngs by the 
" academic teachers " ; almost universally they are selected 
and utilized, not for the true physical development of the 
whole group of youth in the school, but to plan and exe- 



Moral and Religious Education 329 

cute the spectacular exploitation of a few who least need 
their help.^ 

Intellectual Initiative. — On the side of the student's self- 
development that the school has emphasized, the intellectual, 
the great need is the awakening of the student's own initiative 
and energy. Attention should be fixed less upon externals, 
such as the performance of set tasks and the gaining of marks, 
and more upon the essential thing of the youth's sense of his 
own growing powers of thought.^ 

Above all we need to revise our present system of " passing " 
and " failing," by which the individual of high capacity is 
practically encouraged to loaf along at any half-speed that will 
keep his head above water academically. Each must be in- 
cited constantly to do his best, quite regardless whether that 
best is marked " A " or " X " in the school records. We 
might do worse than borrow a maxim from the trainer of 
trotting horses " to make the colt go his pace for his distance " ; 
as things are, we virtually suggest to the fast colt to go the 
slow colt's pace for the slow colt's distance. It is ruinous for 
the human colt to habituate himself to an achievement below 
his capacity, no matter what the achievement may be in itself, 
for so he tends to decrease his powers ; toward increase of 
power there is but one road, the doing of one's present best, 
nay more, one must ever surpass one's best, do the impossible, 
rise to a new level of power and confidence. 

^ See the writer's The High School's Cure of Souls, Educ. Rev., April, 1908, 
pp. 364-365; and Essentials of Character, Macmillan, pp. 115-116, 98-102. 

^ "As a matter of fact the moral exercise of the will is not found in the exter- 
nal assumption of any posture, and the formation of moral habits cannot be 
identified with the ability to show up results at the demand of another. . . . 
The question of moral training has not been touched until we know what the 
child has been internally occupied with, what the predominating direction of his 
attention, his feelings, his disposition has been while engaged upon this task. 
If the task has appealed to him merely as a task, it is as certain psychologically 
as the law of action and reaction is physically that the child is simply engaged 
in acquiring a habit of divided attention." Dewey, Interest as Related to Will, 
p. 9. 



330 Principles of Secondary Education 

Morally no less than intellectually it is a sore point that our 
intellectual culture, fails signally to produce intellectual inter- 
ests which are will characteristics as well as intellectual, and 
which are after all the only true results ; all else, — for instance, 
any acquisition of information or knowledge, — being mere pre- 
liminary or instrumental processes. It is a moral loss quite as 
much as an intellectual one when the student turns away, at 
the end of a course in English or mathematics or science, 
with a sigh of relief and throws away his book and his thoughts 
on the subject, more than satisfied to say that he has " had " it. 
■ This brings us from another angle to the same insistent but 
ignored truth, that intellectual results cannot be achieved with- 
out the vitalization of the learner's own will; the heart of 
instruction is interest, which is the very essence of the " new 
education," and interest is nothing more or less than the 
enlistment of the learner's own will. The upward road for 
better moral training is exactly the same as that to better 
thinking and more intellectual mastery. The sooner both 
secondary and college teaching take this truth into their 
reckoning and let it operate fully on their methods, and upon 
their curricula, the sooner will they approach the heights of 
intellectual success they so greatly and sincerely desire.^ 

Personal Ideals. — The youth's problem of honor is the de- 
cision of what he will admit and what he will reject from his 
innermost self, his code of conduct. What is he to love and 
practice, and what is he to hate and eschew? He is blessed 
with abundant instincts of honor ; chief among them is loyalty 
to his fellows, especially when a conflict with some adult 
authority or power is involved. Another is the ideal of cour- 
age and the utter hatred and abomination of cowardice. How 
resistless these impulses are no words can adequately express ; 
the whole soul and body of the healthy and vigorous youth 

1 An interesting testimony to this is found in the first few paragraphs of Dr. 
Eliot's The Value during Education of the Life-career Motive. N. E. A. 
Proceedings, igio, 133 ff. 



Moral and Religious Education 331 

responds to them. They are strong enough to tear him from 
school or even home, to drag him through danger and pain. 
They are the mainsprings of that great adolescent ethics of the 
race, chivalry, and are the promise in the modern youth of 
both the good and the evil of medieval knighthood.^ 

The fatal error in dealing with adolescent honor, even in its 
most inconvenient forms, is to quarrel with it ; the path of 
success is first of all through an understanding of it that is both 
clear and sympathetic : clear in seeing its confusion and nar- 
rowness, sympathetic in having a warm and abiding sense of 
its appeal and preciousness to the youth himself. Then comes 
enlightenment ; the universal role of thought must be played 
here, and the youth must look out and beyond, must see the 
interests and welfare of all affected: first, those of the "out- 
siders " from his point of view, — the teacher, the man whose 
windows are broken or whose trees have been robbed ; too 
often — alas, for our sportmanship ! — the opposing athletic 
team, the pitcher trying to hold his nerve at a crucial point or the 
quarterback struggling to rally his demoralized team. Then 
he must, and thus will, see the interests of himself and his own 
cKque or crowd, in a new and larger way. Thus, and thus only, 
may the abundant and priceless energy of his impulses of 
honor be enHsted in the service of the larger and truer right. 
But let the teacher never doubt that in its crudest form the 
impulse itself is at bottom good, so good that without its 
aid there is no possibiHty of the reaUzation of the best charac- 
ter in the man that is to grow out of the boy. 

VOCATION. — The vocation motive is happily coining to 
its own in these days. We may hope that the school is soon 
to perceive in a true and profound way the wisdom of the 
answer of the old Spartan king, who, when asked what boys 
should study in school, answered, " I suppose that which being 

1 For a most interesting symposium on this subject see "Who Broke the 
Window" in several numbers of the Outlook for 1913 and "Good, Bad, and 
'Daddy George' " in the Survey, August 2, 1913, pp. 565-566. 



332 Principles of Secondary Education 

men they shall do." No narrow view of this element will 
suffice ; such views have already deformed the practice of 
some vocational schools, and repelled many earnest but con- 
servatively minded friends of education. We cannot accept 
without scrutiny the views of the manufacturer and the 
business man who are mainly concerned to increase the num- 
ber and quality of operatives or clerks ; we cannot agree with 
the dictum that " A boy who is to be a carpenter should con- 
tinue in all stages of his educational course to make manual 
training of this sort his most important occupation." We 
are here concerned, not with the making of carpenters, but the 
making of men. Hence we urge more stress upon the voca- 
tional element and motive in schools because it vitalizes and 
energizes the whole school life of the student ; it puts into his 
" studies " what in other cases is found only in his " activi- 
ties," — spontaneous, self-feeding interest, — and this means 
moral growth instead of atrophy and decay. We do not 
hesitate to say that a survey of the educational field would 
show that the most potent single force for interest in secondary 
and higher education even now is the vocational motive. 
The superior performance of professional students over 
" liberal arts " men is a notorious fact ; the vocational school 
manifests, even to the casual observer, a warmth and person- 
aUty of interest among the students that the general secondary 
school cannot equal. 

To us adults things must mean something if they are to gain 
our attention and effort ; no less so with children. One of the 
simplest and most immediate sources of meaning to the second- 
ary student is relation to his life work. He is going to do a 
vast amount of thinking on this subject, whether or not the 
teacher knows or cares. Before and after leaving high school 
he will canvass vocation, — not wisely, not broadly, not intelli- 
gently ; to his unaided reflection it will be mainly a question 
of " making money " ; even the best of lads have either Uttle 
or no perception of the great rich social aspect of any man's 



Moral and Religious Education 333 

calling. Here are then two great opportunities of the school : 
to utilize the impulse that flows from the vocation motive, 
turning it into channels of mental and technical advancement ; 
and to enlighten the impulse itself, helping the youth to see 
vocation in its bearings upon life as a whole, and especially as 
one of his most important relations to the great world of human 
life and common welfare.^ 

Effect upon the Curriculum. — Of intense interest to every 
high school teacher, and indeed to all friends of education, is the 
question how this vocational principle is to affect the present 
curriculum and methods of the schools. We have already 
proposed a general principle by which all school activities must 
be tested : Do they aid the pupil in grasping and solving his 
problems? So far as vocation is concerned it seems increas- 
ingly sure that many things now not in the curriculum possess 
great capacity to aid the educand in solving this vital, voca- 
tional problem and will inevitably demand and obtain, against 
any resistance whatsoever, entrance into the school. This 
is true of many industrial and technical activities ; and it is no 
less true of some studies, not in themselves contributing to 
the technique of any calling, but shedding light upon vocation 
as a whole, and upon the relations of vocations to each other 
and to economics, ethics, poHtics, and any other great aspect 
of life in which the student must orient himself. It would 
seem that the worker in the field of secondary education should 
prepare himself for far-reaching and radical, though gradual, 
changes in the secondary program of studies in these directions. 

Vocational Guidance. — Most immediately hopeful and 
practicable for moral effect is the field of vocational guidance. 
This need not wait upon costly equipment and sweeping 
changes of personnel and methods : it demands only the enlist- 
ment of the hearts and intelligence of considerable numbers 
of teachers and other sincere friends of youth. The egregious 

^ See chapter on "Social and Economic Gains through Vocational Guid- 
ance," in Bloomfield, Vocational Guidance of Youth, especiall}^ pp. 112-113. 



334 Principles of Secondary Education 

blunder of letting our boys and girls drift or be thrust into 
callings without any rational consideration of the questions 
involved need not remain longer without some remedy. Few 
possible educative methods are so pregnant with good as this. 
It does far more than aid the pupil to solve one of his most 
pressing and fateful questions ; it engenders between youth and 
adviser a relation of sympathy and understanding that is the 
best possible avenue of all kinds of moral aid and enlighten- 
ment. It provides, probably, the easiest good road to the heart 
of the educand. And it is twice blessed, — it blesses the 
teacher who gives no less than the pupil who receives. Few 
things in the high school situation are more to be desired than 
the opening up of paths of sympathetic intimacy between 
teacher and pupil, along which may pass freely the educative 
benefits which now too often lie choked up or inert in the 
teacher's soul.^ 

THE ZEST OF LIFE. — We come next to two great neg- 
lected moral forces, recreation and the intersexual nature and 
life. In both of these, happily, awakening seems at hand. 
Jane Addams' Spirit of Youth and our City Streets is a 
veritable challenge to all who are concerned in the welfare of 
young people of both sexes. It is true that it deals most 
directly with young people who are not in school or college : 
yet the essential nature of youth is the same in both classes, 
and it is probably true of high school boys, as Miss Addams 
says of working youth, that '' recreation is stronger than 
vice, and recreation alone can stifle the lust for vice." Most 
assuredly the modern high school needs to take a page from the 
philosophy of the Greeks and from the educational practice of 
the Greeks and readopt play and recreation as an indis- 
pensable and potent educative force. The very exuberance 
of play is proof enough of its power to leave its mark on the 

1 On this whole problem see Eliot, Value during Education of Life-career 
Motive, Proceedings, N. E. A., iQio, pp. 133 ff. ; Kerschensteiner, Education 
for Citizenship, Chicago Commercial Club, 191 1 ; Gillette, Vocational Guidance, 
Chicago, 1910; Bloomfield, Vocational Guidance of Youth, Boston, 1911. 



Moral and Religious Education 335 

fiber of the organism. Nowhere else does the educative cycle 
run so swiftly and intensely through its full course of stimulus, 
decision, and response. Nowhere is the " trace on brain and 
nerve " more certainly and deeply marked. Profoundly 
formative recreation is, whatever the educator may do about 
it : the task that Hes before us is to control its power and make 
it educative. This is, as we have already suggested, the 
great, almost the only real problem in school athletics. 

The social aspects of recreation extend far beyond the school, 
and responsibility for them must be borne primarily and ulti- 
mately by the home. Yet we may well inquire whether the 
school has not a part to play. It has taken no small hand in 
settling the school fraternity matter : possibly with a little 
too much regard for the institutional welfare of the school 
itself, and rather too Httle consideration of the instincts and 
nature of the young people themselves. We suggest two 
other means at its disposal. The first is closer cooperation 
with the home ; here we are met at once with the complaint of 
lack of time for such relations, especially in our huge and 
crowded city schools, — where it is perhaps most needed. 
The answer is not so impossible as it may seem, — sacrifice 
something else ; let the teacher be authorized, nay instructed, 
to throw quiz or exercise papers into the waste basket any time, 
if needed, to allow time to talk with parents about the welfare 
of their children. It is high time that the secondary teacher 
be freed from the academic strait- jacket of prescriptions and 
requirements of laborious detail, of endless reading of papers, 
and become a teacher and friend, no longer a mere quizmaster 
and indexer of grades. How can we hope to help the growing 
boy and girl when their two chief educators — parent and 
teacher — do not even know each other by sight, and when 
home and school are mutually ignorant of each other's aims, 
ideals, methods, and attitudes? 

It is hard to understand the slowness of school authorities to 
avail themselves of the parents' meeting to aid in this respect. 



336 Principles of Secondary Educatio7t 

Difficulties and some risks there certainly are in the way of 
parent meetings, but so there are in any really worth while 
action. They can be and are being overcome. The problem 
of social life and recreation will be solved only through joint 
and harmonious action of school and home. 

MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THE SEXES. — Sex educa- 
tion is properly a chapter by itself in educational progress : 
something must be said of it from the point of view of moral 
training. There are two great motives for the control of sex 
life by which the lower or physiological impulse is regulated by 
the higher human elements. The first is the desire for individ- 
ual strength and perfection, especially in the case of the 
adolescent boy, the intense ambition to be virile, athletic, 
well grown, to surpass in bodily prowess. This impulse, and 
the actual physical catharsis of an athletic regimen, are the 
great bulwark against all forms of secret vice. But these are 
inadequate, as are all individualistic motives in every field of 
morality : above and beyond it comes the ideal of personal 
honor, of chivalry, merging into the potent impulses of mar- 
riage and family. Marriage and parenthood are the evolution- 
ary and racial solution and elevation of sex, and must be so for 
the individual. Let this expectation of being a husband and 
a father be a part of the conscious thought of youth, mingling 
in his mind with his hopes and ambitions to be a worth-while 
in other fields, such as economic success and civic duty. 

Honor and Ideals. — The thing needed is an attitude to- 
ward the other sex that can bear scrutiny : there are ways of 
appeal that no healthy boy can resist, — "It should be im- 
pressed on every boy that every girl is somebody's sister, and 
that it is his sacred duty to afford her the same respect and 
protection which he would expect from another boy to his 
sister." ^ Charles Wagner puts irresistibly the course of 
thinking for the young man which leads him to the only possi- 
ble conclusion : " The rule of conduct here is chastity. Every 
^ The Survey, Nov. 16, 1911, p. 193. 



Moral mid Religious Educatioji 337 

infraction is a sin. Though this law may seem difficult and 
severe it is the only safe one. MoraUty without it is rubbish." ^ 

The promise and potency of these high ideals is found in a 
field despised and neglected by the educator, and arousing in 
the rest of the adult world mainly the laughter of fools — the 
early love of the adolescent, perhaps the purest and most 
ethereal experience, next to motherhood, that most human be- 
ings ever experience. No description can overstate its charms : 
" It is a morning land full of bursting flowers, bathed in the 
sunshine and the dew, a pure and virgin soil where no foot has 
trod, where no dust and stain have come. It is a land where 
love is born amid the friendships, the smiles, the sports of 
youth. ... It lies at the threshold of our life, like a radiant 
paradise where the joy of living, of seeing, of worshipping 
reverently from afar, and oftenest without telling our love, 
suffices us. We have closed this paradise. We must reopen 
it and teach our youth to desire it." ^ 

Just how this great force is to be utilized is certainly far 
from clear : but it is one of the most undeniable problems of 
education, especially in the secondary period, which usually 
contains the climacteric of adolescent love. Already many 
individual cases have operated for good, and not a few for 
injury in actual school work ; many a high school teacher has 
known of boys awakened to new interest and energy by falling 
in love with some good girl who perhaps was inclined to take 
her studies seriously. 

A Gap in the Curriculum. — Spencer long ago held up to 
sarcastic comment the failure of the school to make any prep- 
aration for the business that nine tenths of the educands must 
some day engage in, — the rearing of a family. The curriculum, 
he says, gives the impression of having been planned for some 
celibate order, rather than for the common run of men and 
women. The moral educator must recognize that to turn out 
good men we must needs form good fathers. Some day we may 

^ Youth, p. 250. 2 Youth, p. 258. 

z 



338 Principles of Secondary Education 

hope for an education that will nurture the impulses of sex and 
love into their normal fruition in inspired and intelligent 
parenthood and family life. At present, the most that we do 
is to curse the ignorance and neglect of the average parent, 
which is, after all, merely the natural result of education as it is. 

WAYS AND MEANS 

The crucial test of all methods of moral training is clear 
from all our preceding consideration : whatever awakens and 
exercises the student's own will cultivates his character. The 
best friend of a youth is he who makes him do most. But the 
doing must be of the will and not merely of legs and hands. 
The actual instruments of training in the school have been 
stated by Professor Dewey as (i) the life of the school as a 
social institution in itself; (2) methods of learning and doing 
work ; (3) the school studies or curriculum.^ As things are, it 
is well to insert a fourth division, school government. Let us 
consider them in this order. 

SCHOOL LIFE. — " The moral life," it has been said, " is 
the response that the individual makes to the social order in 
which he lives." In proportion as the school hours become 
part and parcel of the main flow of the student's spiritual 
existence do they contribute to his moral growth. The great 
task for the secondary school with respect to its " life," is to 
inform all the activities, study, recreation, athletics, social 
affairs, with a wholesome morale, so that in them all the will 
of the youth is acting as we desire it to act in his mature life. 

It is quite clear that one of the first requisites here is the 
cordial and intimate participation of teachers in the life of the 
school. Education, as Professor Palmer has so well said, is a 
" dependent fellowship " in which the elder and wiser en- 
lightens and aids the younger. Boys and girls need such help 
quite as much in their recreation and diversions, their athletics, 

^ Dewe}'-, Ethical Principles underlying Education, p. 26. 



Moral and Religious Education 339 

social functions, journalism, as in algebra and chemistry. 
The modern secondary teacher is tempted, almost compelled, 
to content himself with being a philosopher to his pupils and 
never attaining his more influential relation of guide and friend. 
But that the relation is possible is proved by the few who do 
attain it in high measure, — the teacher to whom the students 
come for counsel about their dances, their school paper, and 
all the miscellaneous quasi-personal details of life outside of the 
curriculum. 

It must be admitted that the huge high schools toward which 
we are so rapidly tending are utterly unfavorable to such moral 
relations ; the testimony of high school students themselves 
indicates that a human companionship between teacher and 
students is not uncommon in the small town or rural school 
but almost unknown in the great metropolitan institution.^ 

SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. — Student self-government is 
nowadays a much mooted subject ; with many it is a phrase 
to conjure with, to others it is a fad with which innovators 
entertain themselves. That the student should wisely 
govern himself is certainly the supreme end of his education ; 
whatever causes him to govern his own conduct in school 
trains him toward this end. The most advanced theory, by 
no means unsupported by practical experience, is that the body 
of pupils should come to feel thoroughly responsible for the 
social order of the school. This is actually realized in higher 
education in at least one conspicuous case ; many secondary 
and even elementary schools at least approximate this condi- 
tion. 

From the point of view of moral training, to which we are 
here confined, two or three things may be said as to the present 
situation : first, no one should pretend, and in the successful 
cases no one does pretend, that the students wield any final 
authority; no one knows better than the students that the 
legally constituted authorities cannot, if they would, abdicate 
^ School Review, December, 1912, pp. 657-659, 663. 



340 Principles of Secondary Education 

their posts or shuffle off their responsibihty. But the students 
are perfectly satisfied to be allowed to conduct their affairs, 
subject to revision by the faculty; and experience shows 
abundantly that under right conditions they can and do get 
along for indefinite periods, dealing with various and difficult 
matters, without needing any official revision from above. 

On the other hand, any one who expects such a system to 
create itself in a high school, or run after it is created without 
most earnest and vigilant care, is likely to suffer a rude dis- 
enchantment. But the work to be done is not mechanical or 
routine, it is spiritual, communicative, intimate ; its great 
purpose is to awaken in the minds of the youth the ambition to 
be autonomous ; and enlighten them as to the true nature of 
the end and the effective means of attaining it. Indeed the 
" system " is the least important part; many a school has 
genuine student self-government, in the wills of individuals and 
in the body politic, without any machinery; and the finest 
system might conceivably lack the true spirit and so be futile. 

One practically demonstrated means toward these ends is 
the maintenance of joint boards or committees composed of 
teachers representing the faculty and students elected by the 
whole school or sections of it.^ These boards should be given 
real things to do and real powers. They constitute an invalu- 
able channel of intercommunication between faculty and 
students, the value of which is realized when we consider the 
fact that the most serious disaffections arise in school life as 
elsewhere through misunderstanding. 

Actual experience with any healthy form of student par- 
ticipation in government will strengthen the teacher's indis- 
pensable faith in the soundness of the real heart of youth in all 
vital matters. In fact, the student council or court not seldom 
takes so ideal and rigoristic a view of conduct as to call for 
some interposition of clemency from the faculty. The great 

1 See for example the Board of Athletics and the Council at Bradley Poly- 
technic Institute, Peoria, Illinois (described in catalogue, q.v.). 



Moral and Religious Education 341 

moral value of all plans of real student control is in their power 
to call forth and exercise the social and ethical will and intelli- 
gence of all concerned. 

SCHOOL WORK. — The most effective educator — 
though we may have to ask sometimes to what good end ? — 
is the athletic coach ; for he spurs and goads his charges with 
the discovery, indeed the creation, of new powers in themselves. 
It might be well for the academic instructors to go out and see 
the football practice, not with any care as to the next match 
game, but to see how the lads add to their power and skill by 
outdoing their previous possibihties. 

It is the immense educative value of industry, of appHcation, 
of relentless persistence, in brief, of every form of hard work, 
that has led to the almost universal faith in " disciphnary " stud- 
ies and that probably accounts for much that is attributed to 
"formal training." Many wise educators have quoted approv- 
ingly that old saying that " the best thing in education is doing 
the thing you don't want to do at the time when you don't want 
to do it." The truth is — paradoxical only in form and because 
of the poverty of words — that real power is gained only 
through wanting to do the thing you don't want to do, and 
doing it because the "don't want" is superficial and tempo- 
rary, while the " want " is essential and permanent. 

This is the reconciliation of interest and effort ; and every 
one knows that the maximum of endeavor is attained, not 
through external compulsion, but through desire and ambition 
from within. 

Yet it is true that few things are more needed in the American 
school, in all grades, than more effort and application, more 
thoroughness and mastery. The youth must learn that 
educationally also " the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, 
and the violent — that is, the energetic and resolute — take it 
by force." 

When we ask then how the young people shall work in high 
school, we may answer, first, hard, very hard ; this is the 



342 Principles of Secondary Education 

gymnastic of the mind, the' only way leading to the powers of 
concentration and mastery. But also successfully and joy- 
fully ; learning to fail, so common now, must be reduced to a 
minimum. To this end they must work intelligently, with 
some sense of purpose and hope of reward. Finally, they must 
work socially, in school, as in life ; here is one of the easiest 
routes of advance, because the present practice is so crudely 
individualistic. The isolation of the pupil in school has long 
been held up to censure, but yields very slowly to improve- 
ment. To help each other, the chief virtue of real life, is a 
misdemeanor in school. Doubtless there are causes for this 
insistence upon individual work; no one wants John to do 
James' work; that is no cooperation at all; what we do 
want and must have is a kind of work in which each can do 
his own part, in contact and relation with all the rest. Only 
thus can the young worker learn the indispensable virtues of 
adjustment, consideration, practical coordination ; it is time 
the school did its share in the production of these traits. 

STUDIES. — After all, as things are, and as they are likely 
to be for some time to come, the bulk of the school's time and 
attention is given to the curriculum. All past ages have had 
great faith in the moral power of studies : aheunt studia in 
mores said the Roman writer, and Bacon quotes the saying 
approvingly; but nowadays the educational world is full of 
skepticism concerning the effect of the curriculum on charac- 
ter. We have space for very brief discussion. First, let us be 
quite clear that the studia of the Latin proverb are not mere 
formal branches of learning, subjects in the school program ; 
the word study, which Bacon and Milton use in its original 
sense, has fallen from its high estate ; a study, truly speaking, 
is an earnest pursuit, a zealous and devoted occupation of the 
mind ; Milton speaks of " the study of learning " as we would 
say the love of learning. It is in this that the truth of the 
saying lies, for the basic fact of the formation of character is 
just this : that our earnest pursuits pass over into habit and 



Moral and Religiotts Education 343 

attitude and so form the very essence of oar morals. This 
then is nothing more than a reiteration of what was said in the 
preceding paragraph on how pupils should work, — hard, 
resolutely, joyfully. Let us be sure that no other kind of 
" study " has any great chance of passing into morals. 

Moral Values. — Having agreed in great measure with the 
disciplinarians on the importance of how children study, we 
differ absolutely with those who belittle the question of what 
they shall study. The moral and in general the practical 
value of studies varies enormously, depending upon the 
directness of their application to the life that the adult is to 
lead. The secondary course stands in need of merciless scru- 
tiny and appraisal in this respect. Let us follow Plato's 
example, who, disregarding even the most sacred traditions, 
chooses and rejects from every source, not excepting Homer 
himself, according as the subject matter fosters virtue or its 
opposite. 

Two great fields at once present themselves as peculiarly 
ethical : history and literature. These both deal direct with 
human life ; they are the humanities, and as such must con- 
stitute the chief part of the moral studies. With history must 
be included the study of the present as well as the past ; also 
the related sciences of economics, politics, and ethics, — all in 
so far as they can be dealt with in the secondary period; and 
the elements of all can be so used. Literature we include 
without regard to the language in which it is written or read ; 
hence much that is now set down as language study — which 
is something utterly different — is here included. In other 
words, this is really the question of the classics, without which, 
rightly understood, there can be no liberal education, as has 
been so often and so warmly declared. 

The Classics. — As to the classics themselves, the humani- 
ties, Milton forever voiced the view of their precious power that 
has been the spring of all the passionate devotion which they 
have excited from the days of the revival of learning until now ; 



344 Principles of Secondary Education 

through them, says he, in his Tractate, the boys are to '' be 
inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of 
virtue, stirred up with high hopes of Uving to be brave men 
and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages," 
and more to the same inspiring effect. This was the view of 
Vittorino and Erasmus and Ascham before Milton's day, 
and of Arnold and Thring since. On such a view it is easy to 
justify the great space in the curriculum given historically to the 
classics. But on such a view the teacher of the classics — 
in whatsoever language, Greek or German or mother tongue — 
must be mainly not an instructor in language but an inter- 
preter of man and his life, as bodied forth in the literature in 
hand. This is humanism, and such a study as this does most 
truly pass into character. How far, in the opinion of at least 
one expert, we are from this lofty ideal, may be read in Gayley's 
Idols of Education (pp. io8 if. and passim). 

Heroes. — We have almost forgotten in these days the true 
educative use of great men, so well known to earlier times ; the 
figures of our own national heroes are almost unknown in their 
true form to the vast majority of our people. By actual test 
college students are quite ignorant of the essential facts 
in the life of Lincoln, and could give no sort of adequate 
reason for our placing him at the top of our list of great Ameri- 
cans. The truth is that the life and character of Lincoln form 
one of the most potent educative instruments at our hand, in 
the vital task of perpetuating and elevating ideals of genuine 
Americanism. But our young people must know him truly 
and intimately ; as it is they have a few scraps of information 
and error mixed and floating about in their minds to no spirit- 
ual purpose. 

Let room be made in the course for more history, especially 
of our own country ; and let room be made in the history, — 
by omitting great masses of material now learned only to be 
immediately forgotten, — for extended and inspiring contact 
with great figures; besides our own great, — Columbus, 



Moral and Religious Education 345 

Washington, Lincoln, and a few others, — there should be an 
acquaintance with the viri mundi, the supremely great of all 
ages and races, Moses, Socrates, Pericles, Regulus, Alfred the 
Great, Charlemagne, Cavour. These happen to be rulers 
and statesmen, but there should also be scientists like Darwin, 
inventors like Palissy, reformers like Luther, men who have 
" enlarged the known powers of man " in any field, arid, above 
all, who have greatly served. 

The true Shekinah, some one has said, is Man : all ideals of 
life and conduct, all ethical truths, are seen perfectly only when 
embodied in man himself ; this is the principle of incarnation, 
of the revelation of God in man, of the Divine Word made 
flesh. Educationally, this principle is doubly potent, for the 
human figure has power to fascinate the attention and enchain 
the heart of youth ; so personalities carry at once the conten-t 
and the enforcement of moral truth. The high school period 
is the last chance for such spiritual effects, and probably the 
best ; it is a valley of decision with respect to ideals and prin- 
ciples; the elementary pupil lacks the breadth of mental 
horizon to enable him either to comprehend or feel the essen- 
tial greatness of most educative figures ; the young man be- 
yond the high school age, whether in college or in life, has closed 
most of the questions involved, and is little affected by the in- 
fluence of ideal personalities. This is the opportunity and the 
responsibility of the secondary period. 

The New Order. — But let us not lose sight of the new 
humanities : the youth of to-day are looking oat on a new world, 
with economic, industrial, political, social ideals and attitudes 
that were only vaguely dreamed of until practically our own 
day. It is a world so full of threat and promise that hope 
fights with despair in the minds of men. Some one must think 
out the solutions of these momentous problems ; intelligence is 
the only possible safeguard against internecine strife. Now 
the high school occupies a unique position and bears a weighty 
responsibility, for out of its small selected group must inevita- 



346 Principles of Secondary Education 

bly come in the main such leadership as the future may hope 
to enjoy. Leadership rests upon two great quahties, spon- 
taneity and initiative, — to the culture of which most of the 
earlier part of this chapter has been given — and power to think 
correctly. This is the imperative call for the social studies in 
the high school, and that in the most practical way. The 
abstract theory of ethics and economics may well wait for the 
college and university, but clear and sound notions of certain 
elements that pervade ordinary adult life, in business, in 
society, in civic duty, in avocation, should be opened up to 
every young person in high school. The secondary school is 
waiting for a Giddings, or a Sumner, with the admirable art of 
leading the minds of early adolescents into true views of these 
questions that they must so soon settle at least in practice. 
What is money? What are labor and capital? What do 
luxury, waste, unemployment, crime, vice, mean for the lives of 
men and women and children ? Above all, what are the new 
hopes of our day and generation, the charity that revives the 
spirit and rehabilitates the will, the physician's art that puts 
prevention before cure and views its profession as social serv- 
ice ; the new patriotism that works in peace as well as war, 
pays its taxes, casts a well-considered and broad-hearted vote ; 
the new jurisprudence and penology that seek to reform the 
culprit rather than to avenge the crime. All this is most 
congenial to the new vocational motive already discussed ; 
the two fields complement each other, the vocation motive 
reenforcing interest in the social studies, and the social ideal 
illuminating and elevating the vocational concept. 

Moral Idealism. — The more distinctly ethical aspect of 
these social studies is the extension of the radius of altruism 
in the minds of the adolescent youth. " Who is my neigh- 
bor " is the insistent practical question in morals ; in the 
abstract any one agrees that we should love each other, but 
most of us find that our charity not only begins at home, but 
never gets far away from its center. The broadening of 



Moral and Religious Education 347 

knowledge has little value, at least so far as conduct is con- 
cerned, unless sympathy also spreads. This is the chief 
fault with our intellectualized instruction in history, literature, 
economics, civics, and the like. The true maxim of humanism 
is the noble dictum, " Nihil humani mihi alienum est," — but 
things human are apprehended not by the understanding 
alone, but also by the heart. Humane studies may be quite 
dehumanized either by intellectual abstraction or by spiritual 
indifference, and may then become rather immoral by accus- 
toming the youth to look with untouched heart upon ideas 
and images that ought to arouse the emotions of any true man. 
'' Unless youth be golden," says Jean Paul, " age will be 
but dross." There is evidence of the need and approach of a 
revival of the spiritual element in secondary education, the 
quality that gave power to the teaching of Arnold and Thring 
and far-off Vittorino. " Neither young nor old," says Presi- 
dent Hall, in his Educational Problems, " should lose the ancient 
vision that has inspired so many of the prophets, saints, and 
apostles of righteousness, — of some ideal state, common- 
wealth, or millennium, city or kingdom of God, Utopia, etc., 
where most ethical characters and organizations are found. In 
the painful struggle for slight, gradual amelioration of present 
evils, we should keep some dream chamber in our many man- 
sioned soul, where we can occasionally retire and revel in the 
imaginations of perfection, and hearten ourselves by yielding 
to the fancy of all good wishes fulfilled and all high ideals 
realized." 

RELIGION 

THE SECULAR SCHOOL. — The outward forms of reU- 
gion which but recently were a part of all school life have 
practically passed away from the public high schools of the 
United States. The great majority of high school students 
never hear the Bible read nor words of prayer uttered nor any 
rehgious instruction or exhortation in school. The history of 



34^ Principles of Secondary Education 

this secalarization of the school has never been adequately 
written. It is certainly part and parcel of a sweeping change 
in the great field of the moral and religious life of our people, 
and indeed of the whole civilized world. The sanctions of the 
moral life in the present age are more social than supernatural. 
The great appeal is to human welfare and hence to social 
justice. This motive in an extreme form becomes Socialism, 
which is a religion to most of its adherents. 

But while the change is so widespread and pervasive as to be 
well-nigh universal, it is not certain that it is so profound and 
fundamental as might be implied by the terms in which it is 
stated. History, in Goethe's figure, '' stands at the roaring 
loom of time and weaves for God the garment that we see him 
by." May not social justice and human good also be the 
visible manifestation of the Divine ? 

REACTION. — Moreover, there are some signs that opinion 
is swinging back somewhat from the extreme of secularity. The 
charge sometimes made by overzealous religionists that the 
schools are '' Godless " has always been warmly resented by 
most of our people and practically all of the teachers. " Shall 
we have Godless schools? " asks a metropolitan daily. " Not 
a family in the community would vote that we should. . . . 
•Who is it objects to the reading of a psalm and the saying 
of the Lord's prayer? Is it conceivable that the objection 
which may be expected to so simple a form of religious obser- 
vance as this shall counterweigh the inculcation of religious 
reverence ? Without regard for creed, there is surely a place 
for God in the schools to which we send the children." 

At least one state has adopted an official syllabus of Bible 
study for use in its high schools ; ^ and requests for the syllabus 
have come from every state in the union. In one large public 
high school an elective course in the Old Testament scriptures 
was given for eight years without arousing the slightest objec- 
tion and with gratifying results in many ways.^ 

^ North Dakota. ^ s^g School Review, April, 1913, pp. 246-249. 



Moral and Religious Education 349 

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. — The greatest danger 
in the secular school is not the loss of the theological or 
ecclesiastical content of the traditional religious instruction, 
but the failure to learn to think of the world religiously, that 
is, profoundly and humanly. Here is found the justification of 
the paramount place given to religion in education by educa- 
tors like Arnold of Rugby, and the I^oman CathoHcs in all 
periods. True, attention is too often placed upon externahties, 
— religious exercises, scripture, church attendance, and the 
like. These externalities are the field of infinite divergence and 
antagonism, and this has led to the elimination of religion in 
this sense from the public schools. We are just detecting our- 
selves in the act of rejecting the essence along with the super- 
ficial, or to use the homely German phrase, we are in danger of 
'' throwing out the child with the bath water." 

Hence the first and most general task of the high school, 
and the secondary teacher, in this respect, is to lead youth not 
only to think all things in their individual clearness and their 
immediate relations, — which is science, — but also to get a 
vision of the wholeness of the world and of life, and the radia- 
tions of cause and effect out to their remote bearings in both 
space and time ; and finally to feel that all things get their 
meaning and value from their relation to the life of mankind, 
with all its possibihties, both tragic and glorious. 

Against such thinking there is no law, nor any voice of pro- 
test. Young people of high school age eagerly follow the 
teacher who leads them in these directions, and cherish the 
memory of such teachers above all others. But the method is 
all important : dictation and coercion are worse than useless ; 
learning by rote is futile ; here, more than anywhere else, the 
teacher's role is stimulus and guidance; the student must 
think himself out ; the only effective compulsion is the force 
of truth and reason. But the ancient sage at least had 
boundless faith in the spiritual efficacy of such a method 
when he wrote " ' Come let us reason together,' saith the 



350 Principles of Secondary Education 

Lord, ' though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wliite 
as wool.' " 

MEANS. — Certainly there are means peculiarly fitted to 
these ends. The Bible will usually be recognized as the su- 
preme expression of the moral and religious life of the past. 
References made earlier in this section show that the way is 
probably opening for ^ renewed attention to the scriptures, 
at least the Old Testament, in the schools. Natural science 
no longer boasts of having " abolished mysteries " and is in 
far less sharp antithesis to religious thought than it was 
twenty-five years ago. History and literature are the great 
opportunities for nurturing the religious as well as the ethical 
view of life. I have elsewhere pointed out that many of our 
heroes, national and universal, if presented truly, bring in 
religion embodied in their characters and actions.^ 

Finally, do we not need to consider earnestly the place which 
the daily chapel exercise in its various forms held in practically 
all secondary schools and colleges but a short time ago ? Com- 
plete return to it is impossible and probably not desirable; 
but it is hard to doubt that we need to gather students and 
teachers together more frequently in meetings whose spirit is 
earnest, reverent, thoughtful, touched with emotion, raised 
to the higher levels of thought and feelings, in a word, and in 
the deepest sense of that word, religious. 

THE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER 

LIMITATION BY CONDITIONS. — Miss Addams tells 
of some lads who complained to her that their high school 
principal never talked to them about life. "He never asks 
us what we are going to be ; we can't get a word out of him 
excepting lessons and keeping quiet in the halls." Yet 
every one who knows the social status of the school and 
the teacher knows that the blame for such an attitude 

^ Religiou.s Education, April, igii. 



Moral and Religiotts Education 351 

rests upon society and its treatment of the school and 
the teacher rather than upon the unfortunate high school 
principal in question, or the thousands of teachers who are 
like him. The intellectual load of the course of study, tight 
bound by college entrance requirements, exhausts the powers 
of attention and effort of most teachers. In the small school 
the teacher has too many subjects and classes ; in the large 
school too much routine and regulation.* The routine must be 
performed ; spiritual influence cannot be placed upon a time 
schedule nor tested by examination, so we have as of old the 
tithing of mint and anise and cummin to the exclusion of the 
weightier matters of the cultivation of judgment and righteous- 
ness in the pupils. 

REMEDIES. — The amount of potential moral educative 
energy stored up, or rather choked up, in the high school 
teachers of the land is beyond computation. Two things are 
greatly to be desired : first, that the pressure of class work, 
exercise correction, theme reading, laboratory instruction, 
and other forms of routine may be greatly reduced, and 
thus allow the teacher time and spiritual energy for per- 
sonal relation with classes and individuals ; then, also, that 
teachers should express in word and deed the interest they 
feel in the real inner state and development of their pupils. 
The secondary teacher of other days was a teacher of youth ; 
now he is an instructor in mathematics or botany or Ger- 
man ; the difference is by no means simply verbal. Admit- 
ting, although only for the sake of the argument, that the 
new instructor accomplishes more in intellectual progress, 
it may still be asked whether we might not well travel quite 
halfway toward the older type. After all, the most impor- 
tant of all qualifications for the teacher is that embodied 
in the vow of the Jesuit, " a special concern for the education 
of youth." 

Yet must the teacher study to be only a stimulator of the 
mind and will of the student: moral education consists in 



352 Principles of Secondary Education 

bringing to pass the most and best activity of the will of the 
educand himself, in all its phases, — ■ energy, intelligent direc- 
tion, and finally righteousness. He must do right; but the 
vital doing is inner, psychic, often hidden from all except 
perhaps the keenest insight. He must think and feel aright ; 
the moral teacher is the one who can accomplish this inner 
result ; and the doing of this is influence. The teacher here 
as elsewhere is to find his success in rendering himself no 
longer needed. The road to this end is hard to find ; in general 
it requires that the teacher should do as little as possible and 
the learner as much as possible. We have suggested that 
many teachers exercise their powers of moral influence too 
little — perhaps speak too little with a moral aim ; yet it is 
easy to say too much and do too much. In training as well as 
in instruction, great is the power of silence and refraining ; not 
seldom it incites the educand to his utmost efforts and so 
advances him most effectively in power and wisdom. To be 
ever at hand, ready to help ; ever interested in the problems, 
the perplexities, the temptations, the hopes and ambitions, 
of the young ; yet not to meddle, not to interrupt needlessly, 
to perceive the right moment and divine the true means, — 
this is the art of influence. 

Perhaps the most practical advice that can be given to the 
teacher who desires success in this task is to follow the method 
of the Greeks, who, as Matthew Arnold says, poured a flood 
of thought about every question. We must think before and 
after ; we must plan our operations as wisely as we can, and 
subject the outcome to earnest scrutiny that we may do more 
wisely the next time. Nor is any individual competent to 
think out his problems unaided ; the flood of thought, to be 
safe and adequate, must come from many minds ; hence the 
value of conference in all its forms, especially, however, among 
small groups of two or three who have common interests and 
deal with the same or similar individuals. 

The high school youth is looking out eagerly into the world, 



Moral and Religious Education 353 

— of which he usually takes a very unacademic view. His 
great problems all look in that direction, as indeed they should. 
He often views his teachers as semi-clerical, unworldly, almost 
secluded in their minds and activity. In this he is doubtless 
partly wrong; but he is also partly right, and the teacher 
who will seek influence in any high degree with the mass of 
the youth must Uve in the current of the world's life, think 
on the problems of the day, and share in social, civic, and 
political life. Only thus can he either trust his guidance to 
be right or hope that his pupils will respond. It is a part of 
the great price at which influence is bought ; fortunately it is 
also worth while in itself. We may well hope that various 
present obstacles to such activity on the part of teachers may 
be removed. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. How can will power be developed through high school work aside 
from the training that comes from meeting moral problems ? 

2. What relation exists between intellectual results and moral training 
so far as you have observed it in actual schoolroom experience ? 

3. What changes in our usual high school curricula are demanded to 
meet this problem of moral education ? What changes of method ? Of 
organization ? 

4. How valuable is "direct" moral training ? How can it be given ? 

5. If the whole problem of education is moral, how can desired moral 
results be obtained from any one given subject, as mathematics, history, 
or literature ? 

6. What is the relation of "interest" to moral education, as you have 
observed it in your own experience as pupil and teacher ? 

7. In what respects and why does the period of adolescence seem to 
be the most fruitful period for moral education ? 

8. To what extent is it possible to give intellectual instruction through 
"problems" and how does this affect moral education? What are the 
difi&culties and dangers involved? 

9. To what extent should sex hygiene form a part of the instruction 
in high school ? How can it best be given ? 

10. What value do athletics possess as a means to moral education? 
What moral problems do athletic activities present to the high school 
pupil ? 



354 Principles of Secondary Education 

11. To what extent can the work in physical education be made the 
basis of moral training ? 

12. To what extent can the social activities and organizations of the 
high school pupils be used as means of moral training ? 

13. To what extent can forms of self-government be used to effect 
moral results ? 

14. Compare either English, French, or German secondary schools 
with American in the use which they make of athletics, physical edu- 
cation, self-government revenues, direct moral instruction, sex hygiene 
instruction, or the direct instruction in the intellectual subjects, as means 
to moral education ? 

15. In the life and work of great school masters, as Arnold, Thring, 
Hopkins, was it their influence in moral education or in intellectual in- 
struction that counted more ? In each of such cases what were the means 
by which the moral influence was exerted ? 

16. Does vocational training simplify or render more complex the 
problem of moral education ? Why and how ? 

17. To what extent, as shown in concrete studies, does vocational 
guidance aid in moral education ? 

18. Does coeducation simplify or make more complex the problem of 
moral education ? In what respects ? 

19. What place has religious instruction in secondary schools ? How 
can it best be given ? 

20. What place does religious instruction have in the adolescent period ? 
How can it best be given ? 

21. What is the relation between religious instruction and moral 
education ? 

22. What place and obligation has the teacher in moral education ? 

REFERENCES 

Abler, F. Moral Instruction of Children. New York, 1898. 
Butler, Nicholas Murray, and others. Principles of Religious Edu- 
cation. New York, 1900. 
CoE, George A- Education in Religion and Morals. New York, 

1904. 
Dewey, J. Ethical Principles underlying Education. Chicago, 1897. 
Moral Principles in Education. Boston, 1909. 
Interest as Related to Will. Bloomington, 111., 1896. 
Drawbridge, C. L. Religious Education. How to Improve It. Lon- 
don, 1906. 
First International Moral Education Congress : 



Moral and Religious Education 355 

(i) Record of Proceedings. London, 1908. 

(2) Papers on Moral Education. London, 1908. 
Jenks, J. W. Life Questions for High School Boys. Y. W. C. A., 1910. 
Jones, Henry, and others. The Child and Religion. New York and 

London, 1905. 
Publications of the Rehgious Education Association (Chicago) and 

of the Catholic Educational Association (Columbus). 
IMcCuNN, J. The Making of Character. New York, 1900. 
Palmer, G. H. Ethical and Moral Instruction in Schools. Boston, 1909, 
Religious Education Association. Education and National Character. 
Riley, A., and others. The Religious Question in Public Education. 

London, 1911. 
Sadler, M. E. Moral Instruction and Training in Schools. London, 

1908. 
Spalding, J. L. Means and Ends of Education. Chicago, 1901. 
Spiller, G. Report on Moral Instruction and on Moral Training. 

Bibliography. London, 1909. 
Spiller, G., ed. Papers on Moral Education. International Moral 

Education Congress. London, 1909. 
See also the References in the body of this article. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE VERNACULAR 

THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE. — As early as Plato 
the fundamental theoretical principles which underlie the teach- 
ing of literature were already clearly stated. In the Gorgias 
the character who gives the name to this dialogue maintains 
that he has elaborated an art, the art of rhetoric, which is 
communicable by teaching and which will assure to the practi- 
tioner of that art the greatest possible happiness. Plato, on 
the other hand, if we may assume that Isocrates expresses 
Plato's opinions, maintains that what Gorgias calls an art is 
a false art, is merely flattery (cf . the place which is assigned to 
the poet in the Republic) . and that real power has to do only 
with the perception of and control over that inner truth which 
is each man's possession in varying degrees by gift of nature, 
and that consequently there is no communicable art of ex- 
pression based upon sound moral principles. To these two 
views, both manifestly presented in the extreme, should be 
added a third, set forth in the Ion. This is the doctrine of 
" secondary inspiration," according to which certain persons 
whose spirits are attuned in a peculiar manner to the writings 
of some specific master of literature are thus enabled to put 
themselves with respect to these writings into a sympathetic 
mood of enthusiasm which is similar to the mood of the author 
in composing them, and which in a certain degree is communi- 
cable to others. The three principal points, therefore, which 
are represented in these two dialogues, expressed in terms of 
modern thought, are, first, the possibility of teaching the 
technique of an art of literature; second, the necessity of 
basing literature not upon technique, but upon personal 

356 



The Vernacular 357 

character, which is not communicable and consequently not 
teachable; and third, the transmission of the elements of 
personal character not completely but in an imperfect manner 
by means of sympathetic appreciation or secondary inspira- 
tion. If we add to these principles a conception not possible 
in Plato's time, the conception of a history or development of 
literature, we shall have all the main ideas which underlie 
the modern teaching of the subject. 

ENGLISH LITERATURE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS.— 
The question of the advisability of teaching literature in the 
modern secondary schools has been definitely answered by ac- 
tual experience. Through the various stages of the elocution- 
ary speaking of " pieces," the use of reading books, and finally 
the detailed and formal study of English classics, the study of 
literature has gradually taken its place in the school curriculum, 
although it is only within the present generation that extensive 
and specific provision has been made for such study. The cause 
and the justification for the contemporary emphasis placed 
upon the study of the English language and literature are 
intimately bound up with the democratic tendencies in general 
of both language and literature within the last three genera- 
tions. English literature, beginning with the reforms of the 
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, has become 
more and more in its modern manifestations an expression of 
general social ideas and emotions than ij: has ever been before, 
and its range of appeal has consequently become wider. 
Moreover, the modern school, in the extraordinary expansion 
by which it has assumed to itself many different kinds of 
activity, left by the earlier school either to the limited instruc- 
tion of the parent or of special masters, has at the same time 
assumed certain responsibilities, necessarily arising from the 
instruction in the elements of these new subjects which the 
school provides for the public at large. Thus in teaching 
practically every member of the community how to read and 
write, the school has placed within the reach of all the elements 



358 Principles of Secondary Education 

necessary to the understanding and the practice of the literary 
art. Having provided the general public with the key of 
admission to the treasury of English literature, modern 
education cannot consistently abandon the public thereafter 
to its own undisciplined devices. A system of universal 
popular education logically demands that attention be given 
to so influential an element as literature in the life of the people ; 
and in answer to this demand, from the lowest grades through 
the secondary school, the college, and the university, the study 
of the literature of the vernacular has come to occupy an im- 
portant, and, on the whole, unquestioned place. The de- 
batable question is no longer whether English literature shall 
be taught to English students, but how and with what varying 
degrees of emphasis it shall be taught. 

Literary Appreciation. — Perhaps the most important single 
result of modern practical experience has been the turning 
aside from matters of information about authors and litera- 
ture, as exemplified in the old-fashioned manuals of the histor)! 
of literature, to an attempt at direct appreciation of the 
literary monuments themselves. It is now generally recognized 
that historical and biographical information with respect to 
literature is of secondary value, and that it finds its justifica- 
tion in instruction only when it helps the student to a truer 
appreciation of the literary product. The study of literature 
is not, therefore, an appendage to the study of history ; and 
this is especially true in the elementary teaching of literature. 
The details of historical and biographical information are 
matters of scholarship, whereas the proper understanding of 
literature in its simplicity is not primarily a matter of scholar- 
ship, but rather of sensibility and feeling. 

Study of the Vocabulary. — At the same time it is recog- 
nized that the teaching of elementary English literature i^ 
not altogether a matter of sensibility and feeling, and that it 
has elements of a severer intellectual discipline in it. In the 
first place, all literary expression is made up of words, and an 



The Vernacitlar 359 

intelligent understanding of the meanings and connotations 
of words is absolutely necessary to any adequate appreciation 
of literary monuments. The teacher, therefore, must gauge 
the capabilities of students with respect to the vocabulary of 
the literary expression under examination in such a way as to 
make sure that their understanding is not only clear, but also 
in accordance with the normal traditional usages of the lan- 
guage. It is not enough that students should have a definite 
impression of a work of literature ; they must also have correct 
impressions. In acquiring this right understanding of words, 
which, as Plato has justly said, is the basis of scholarship, 
the teacher's most intelligent judgment and oversight are 
necessary. Obviously the study of a literary monument the 
expression of which is so far beyond the comprehension of the 
student that his attention is completely taken up with details, 
leaving him no energy for the synthesis of his impressions, 
should be deferred until the student has at his command 
a wider range both of vocabulary and of modes of thought. 

The Literary Language. — Another kind of definite fact 
which the elementary teacher of literature may not neglect 
is that which has to do with certain forms of phrasing peculiar 
to the literary style, especially the use of figurative language. 
These modes of expression are usually quite outside the 
student's natural colloquial experience, and unless they are 
specifically analyzed, the significance of them is not clearly 
realized, even when the individual words are intelKgible. 
It is the frequent experience of all teachers of English literature 
that even fairly mature students are unable to see the value 
of a metaphorical expression, an inability which arises not 
so much from an inactive intelligence as it does from unfamil- 
iarity with the literary convention contained in the manner of 
expression. The study of literary style, as it was developed 
in the early manuals of rhetoric, and as it was based upon the 
study of the Greek and Latin classics, limited itself almost 
exclusively to the analysis and classification of figures and 



360 Principles of Secondary Education 

metaphors. The futiUty of all such classification merely for 
the sake of classification acknowledged, it must be granted also 
that, within proper bounds, the analysis of metaphorical 
expression is justifiable and necessary. 

Still a third group of facts to be noted in the disciplinary 
study of elementary literature consists of allusions, proper 
names, and other matters of information embodied in the text, 
the understanding of which is necessary for the proper grasp- 
ing of the writer's intention. Here again it is apparent that 
works such as some of the satires of Dryden and Pope, in 
which the local and contemporary allusions are so numerous 
as to absorb all the student's attention, are hardly appropriate 
material for elementary instruction. 

The Philological Method. — When stress is placed heavily 
upon these details of fact, that is, on vocabulary, figures, al- 
lusions, etc., the result is what is often called the "philological" 
method of the study of literature. This kind of literary study, 
which arose out of a desire to give the study what was con- 
sidered a disciplinary value, was much more in vogue in a pre- 
ceding generation than it is at present. The study of figures 
of speech, for example, was made a very technical drill in the 
classification of the figures under the heads of an elaborate and 
pedantic system of classical terminology. In the same way 
the study of vocabulary was, and often continues to be, 
carried to extremes in the consideration of the etymological 
origins of the various words, or their comparative uses by 
different writers, and similar questions. The study of gram- 
mar is often combined with the study of literature, and teachers 
have been known to compel students to parse through every 
word of In Memoriam under the pretense of a literary study 
of that poem. It is perhaps sufficient to point out here that 
the philological method when carried to such extremes does not 
answer the requirements of the study of literature, however 
valuable it may be as a technical drill in language. The com- 
mon-sense conclusion seems to be that a piece of Hterature 



The Vernacular 361 

should not be taken up, at least in elementary or secondary- 
instruction, when it requires such elaborate hnguistic commen- 
tary that the student's attention and energy are completely 
abstracted from the appreciation and enjoyment of the work 
merely as literature. 

Technique and Structure. — The more subtle questions of 
technique, such as those which have to do with form or 
structure in the larger sense, the differentiation of types, the 
conventions of individual types, etc., are usually, and may very 
well be, disregarded in elementary instruction. With the 
most mature students the interest of these questions with 
respect to literature may be considered as esoteric, and with 
younger students, much more limited in power of abstract 
thought, the dwelling upon them is merely confusing. There 
is perhaps somewhat more justification in dwelling upon 
historical considerations, e.g. the period at which a work was 
written and the particular contemporary circumstances of its 
composition. Such details are often helpful in grasping the 
meaning of a work as a whole. But it is doubtful if students 
should be much troubled with attempts to group writers into 
periods, or to appreciate large general movements, like 
classicism and romanticism, in the earlier stages of their 
literary training. The usual plan of reserving such considera- 
tions for the last year of the secondary curriculum or for the 
college seems to be the wisest. 

As to the question of transmitting appreciation for the 
literary monument itself, after all matters of technical detail 
have been disposed of, apparently little that is of practical 
value can be said. It will be generally conceded that Plato 
was right when he declared that there was no communicable 
technique for the best aspects of literature, and that a right 
feeling, " a secondary inspiration," will accomplish more than 
the most ingenious technical analysis. And as the Greek 
rhapsodists gave expression to this secondary inspiration 
mainly by reciting the works of the authors who inspired 



362 Principles of Secondary Educatio7i • 

them, so in elementary instruction intelligent reading is often 
more effective than elaborate commentary. 

Moral and Cultural Value. — One other aspect of the ele- 
mentary study of literature presents itself insistently to the 
teacher, and this is the question of the relation of the study 
of literature to the study of morals, ideas, and civilization in 
general. It is obvious that the possibilities of correlations 
of this kind in literary study are almost illimitable in extent. 
No other kind of expression has summed up so directly and so 
compactly as English literature has done the ideas and forces 
which have exerted influence upon the thought of the English 
people. Any adequate study of the monuments of English 
literature must consequently and of necessity lead over into 
a consideration of moral ideas. The study of The Merchant 
oj Venice, of Silas Marner, of The Ancient Manner, to choose 
a few examples at random, inevitably raises in each instance 
important questions of moral conduct which are inherent 
in the very conception of the works. The endeavor 
to exclude such discussions by limiting the choice of 
texts read to simple narrative, like Scott's narrative poems, 
seems hardly defensible, since it excludes what must be re- 
garded as the most characteristic products of English literature. 
Here again a balanced and common-sense attitude toward 
the question of moral instruction in the teaching of literature 
seems to be the only one tenable. To make literature merely 
the vehicle for the conveyance of moral instruction, to torture 
a moral lesson out of every innocent poem or tale, changes 
the subject from the study of literature to the study of ethics, 
besides frequently destroying for the student the characteristic 
charm of the writings under consideration. On the other hand, 
the moral and didactic implications of many of the most im- 
portant monuments of English literature cannot be disregarded 
without slighting what is after all one of the most persistent 
and prominent characteristics of the whole history of that 
literature. 



The Vernacular 363 

Grading the Material. — The question of grading the 
material used in literary study may naturally be answered 
variously according to the attendant circumstances. In 
general, however, in the early years of the elementary 
pupil's development, the most appropriate material will be 
found in fairy tales, folk tales, myths, and simplified forms 
of epic narrative. The next stage in the development of 
popular narrative, and the one which is most appropriate 
for study in the later years of the elementary school, is rep- 
resented by the romantic tales of chivalry, such as the stories 
of King Arthur and other medieval romances, as well as 
chivalric stories from actual history. In the secondary school, 
on the other hand, considerably more attention is paid, and 
appropriately so, to writings which are specifically works of 
literary art, and which consequently bear the marks of con- 
scious literary artifice, such, for example, as the list of " Eng- 
lish Classics " prescribed for reading and study in preparation 
for entrance into college, and the still larger list now recom- 
mended for all secondary schools by the National Council of 
Teachers of English. 

THE TEACHER AS AN INTERPRETER OF LITERA- 
TURE. — The " interpretation of literature " is a general ex- 
pression including one or more of several things. In its pri- 
mary and simple sense, it means understanding what the author 
has said. Such interpretation is the main thing in reading 
simple straightforward prose like Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech 
or Macaulay's Lije of Johnson, and simple poetry like Long- 
fellow's The Wreck of the Hesperus or Homer's Odyssey. It is 
in this primary sense that the child reads his Second Reader, 
and the average man reads his daily newspaper. He gets 
the surface meaning, interpreted and made significant by such 
experiences as he has had. But what the classical scholar gets 
in reading Homer differs widely in quality and quantity from 
what the schoolboy gets ; what the statesman or historian 
understands and sees in the daily news differs from the read- 



364 Principles of Secondary Education 

ing of the ordinary citizen ; The Pilgrim's Progress had more 
meaning for the Puritan theologians than it has for a twentieth- 
century reader. It is obvious that even in the reading of the 
clearest, simplest literature there are widely varying degrees 
of understanding and mental responsiveness. It is equally 
obvious that as the education of the child progresses he ought 
year by year to be able to get more out of the simpler forms of 
literature, and to read literature whose comprehension re- 
quires more accumulated experience from both life and books ; 
the general field of literature ought for him to have year by 
year more and deeper significance. As his power of inter- 
pretation grows with his general mental growth, he will 
naturally put away some of the childish things. It is no dis- 
paragement of the nursery rhymes and folk-tales that the high 
school pupil has outgrown them ; no disparagement of Long- 
fellow that he has little to say to highly cultivated minds, 
though he may have been among the favorite authors of their 
nonage. 

Interpretation is, then, a changing and growing, not a static, 
power in all who are in process of being educated. It is pri- 
marily a matter of comprehension. It is closely related also 
to taste, has much to do with forming and determining taste ; 
for how one feels towards a subject is determined largely by 
how much one understands. Is the town drunkard a joke, 
or an object of pity? Is the financial bandit to be envied 
or to be despised ? Was Napoleon a great man, or a powerful 
brute? Is war glorious, or senseless and bestial? Are the 
footlights of the cheap theater the entrance to fairyland? 
Your answer to such questions will indicate not only your 
feelings, but what you really know. And so with books. Is 
Dickens sometimes vulgar or maudlin? Does he rank high 
in fertihty of invention? Is Omar Khayyam irreHgious? 
Is the newspaper you read conducted with intelligence and 
honesty? Do you accept the statements of advertisers or 
politicians at their face value ? A book, like a fact, is nothing 



The Vernacular 365 

in itself. Unread, it is non-existent. Read by one person, 
it is one thing ; by another person, another thing ; to the same 
person at different times, even, a book may have widely dif- 
ferent values. Different ages, as well as different persons, 
have viewed differently the same books. Shakespeare in- 
tended his audience to jeer at Shylock in his defeat, and they 
did ; but modern readers, actors, and audiences find him a 
tragic figure in spite of Shakespeare's clear intention, and 
Portia's mercy speech rings hollow if not hypocritical. Don 
Quixote was a humorous scarecrow to the seventeenth century, 
an object of sympathy and admiration to the nineteenth. 
The interpretation of literature is, indeed, a highly relative 
thing : changeable, various, and complex. And the teacher 
must not expect a book to have the same import and value 
for all his pupils. 

The student of literature, that is, the thoughtful reader of 
literature, may approach it from different directions. These 
approaches may be determined by our own dominant interests 
or by the nature of the literature itself. 

I. Our interests may be largely linguistic. We may study 
our Shakespeare, our Chaucer, our Alfred, for the language of 
the time. This is an interesting and important study, but 
it is not, strictly speaking, the study of literature. It is the 
study of that in which literature is expressed, and without 
which it cannot be understood. The authors and scholars 
of the eighteenth century, being ignorant of Middle English, 
were under the delusion that Chaucer was barbarous and un- 
musical, and so failed to enjoy the charm of his poetry. Eng- 
lish philology has put Chaucer back among the readable 
poets. Most of the failure of high school pupils and ordinary 
readers to appreciate Shakespeare is due to the strangeness 
of his language ; he was clear enough to the audiences of his 
own day. 

To slight the study of words in teaching literature is to 
render the reading weak and colorless. Not only the mean- 



366 Principles of Secondary Education 

ing, but the quality and flavor, of a selection are determined 
by the fine shades of diction. He only has learned to read 
who has become sensitive to words, and is willing to give care- 
ful thought to their meaning. Such a reader will find his range 
widened, not only in English, but in its related dialects. Burns 
and Scott among the elder, and Barrie among the later, writers 
demand an eye and ear quick to take in dialect. Tales of 
Irish life, stories in negro dialect, like Uncle Remus, and many 
other variations from standard English may be read not only 
with pleasure but in confidence that they are literature. The 
genius of the English-speaking peoples is hospitable to new 
and changing forms of speech, averse to fixity and to linguistic 
authority. 

2. Our interest may be biographical, not in the narrow 
sense of the external facts of the author's life, — those events 
that can be recorded with dates afifixed, — but in the fuller 
sense of an interest in the personality of the man. Much 
so-called biography is only remote gossip ; not wholly unworthy 
and ignoble, if taken as an interesting and significant part of 
the great human document. One would not like to be igno- 
rant of the fact that the great have had their sins and foibles ; 
but one would hardly wish to have such things loom so large 
as to impair one's sense of values. Yet, in studying literature 
those features of an author's life and character which help 
us to understand his work are well worth while. The con- 
nection between one man's life and his books will not be the 
same as another's. Burns, Lamb, Goldsmith, Stevenson, have 
written themselves into their work in a full and direct fashion. 
Milton and Tennyson have done it much less directly. For 
such of his life as we have, Shakespeare has done it still less ; 
and it is hard to see, in these last three instances, how the 
study of their lives can throw much light upon, or create much 
interest in, their work for young students. Indeed, it is rather 
common among lovers of literature for their interest in literary 
biographies to come late, — say at twenXy-five or later, — though 



The Vernacular 367 

their familiarity with good Hterature may date from their 
early 'teens. 

When one has reached the point of finding the author's 
personality in his work, he has come to the thing of value in 
the biographical aspect of his studies. How a flower, or a 
waterfall, or a peasant appealed to Wordsworth, to Burns, 
to Scott, to Tennyson ; how Shelley reacted to a social wrong, 
how Burns did, how Dickens did ; what things were humorous 
to Chaucer, to Shakespeare, to Jane Austen ; what things 
roused Milton's anger, and what his reverence ; which authors 
see life direct, and which see it through the medium of books ; 
what things appeal to the senses of this man or that, — these 
are not biographical questions only, but critical, also, and are 
therefore interpretation of literature in a very real sense. 

3. Our interest may be historical. We may view a piece 
of literature as a link in the chain of historic development. 
The rise and end of the epic; the invention of the sonnet, 
its disuse and subsequent revival ; the rise and decline of the 
heroic couplet ; the development of the various forms of the 
novel, in the guise of letters, or of autobiography or of the 
omniscient third personal narrator, — these and many other 
matters of form invite historical study. More interesting 
than these matters of form, however, is the development of 
ideas. The sonnet -has enlarged its scope from a simple, 
usually trivial, love motive, until it includes almost every 
phase of human experience capable of brief poetic expression. 
Ideals and standards of taste and morality have changed 
immensely. Some of the tricks played upon foolish Malvolio 
strike a modern audience as brutal rather than funny ; and so 
the prison scene is now omitted from stage representations of 
Twelfth Night. Milton's ideas of woman's place are not the 
same as those in Tennyson's The Princess. Chaucer's Wife 
of Bath had a freedom of speech repugnant to the taste of 
the nineteenth century, but our own time seems disposed to 
allow her modern counterparts an equal degree of freedom in 



368 Principles of Secondary Education 

the name of the social sciences. The bludgeon-Hke insults of 
the eighteenth century, in epigram or heroic couplet, once 
passed for wit and satire ; now they would only serve to mark 
the author as socially " impossible." Since Wordsworth's 
day the humble and the poor and the child have come to a place 
in literature undreamed of in Shakespeare's day. 

Such changes in literature both record and cause the changes 
in social ideals, and are therefore not only profoundly inter- 
esting, but, as subjects of study, immensely valuable. The 
student who has begun to notice such things, to compare ideals 
in different times and different authors, has begun not only 
to read, but to learn and to think ; he has awakened to what 
is perhaps the greatest educational force in literature. To 
cite a familiar instance : When George Eliot closes her village 
idyll of Silas Marner by marrying her heroine to a common 
village laborer, instead of letting her enter into the inheritance 
and the opportunities which her father, the squire, offers her, 
we note the unconventional nature of the denouement. Why 
has the author done this? Out of regard for young Aaron, 
the rustic lover? Hardly, for he need not even have been 
introduced into the story. To punish the father for his 
cowardly delay in acknowledging his child? But he has 
already been punished in various ways : he is childless, he has 
his conscience and a gently censorious wife. Is this the only 
way of rewarding Silas? He could die in peace and happi- 
ness before the necessity for Eppie's choice arises. Does the 
author mean that there is more happiness in a cottage than in 
a mansion ? Is it the spirit of nineteenth century democracy, 
or her strong sense of the laws of things, that guides the author 
to this ending ? Whatever answer we make, we are forced to 
admit that the story would probably not have been ended 
thus before the days of George EHot. Any one of a dozen 
authors of the nineteenth century might have ended the 
story as she did, but hardly one of those of an earlier 
century. 



The Vernacular 369 

4. Our interest may be purely aesthetic. In much of our 
reading we are content with the satisfaction of our aesthetic 
sense. We find the story or poem is beautiful, and ask no more 
of it. Such is the appeal of many lyrics, for example. The 
songs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the comedies 
of Shakespeare, the odes of Keats and Shelley, the poetry of 
Swinburne, often raise little thought, or none, as to their mean- 
ing, their wisdom. They have no " message," no evangel, 
for us. It may be beauty of sound that we feel, ranging all 
the way from the simple rhythm of Mother Goose to the in- 
tricate melody of Swinburne or the " organ-music " of Milton. 
It may be the beauty of the picture presented, as in Keats' 
Eve of St. Agnes. It may be the vague stirring of other 
aesthetic memories, as in Keats' Nightingale or Wordsworth's 
Highland Girl. Often, indeed, the pleasure is in a thrill, 
a transport, compounded of several of these elements. To 
those for whom such things have no appeal, they have no 
appeal. The deaf cannot enjoy music, the blind do not fre- 
quent picture-galleries ; but deafness and blindness are mis- 
fortunes, not arguments. 

5. Our interest may be in the form and structure of a piece 
of literature. We may examine the meter and rhyme arrange- 
ment of poetry, study and compare the various types of sonnet 
structure, note the parts of a short story, trace the threads of 
action in the complicated plot of a novel, follow the develop- 
ment of a drama through the crisis to the denouement, or note 
the logical relation in the parts of an essay. Such study, 
especially in the drama and prose fiction, involves important 
acts of judgment, where plot is made to depend on probability 
in action or consistency in character. That story is con- 
vincing which seems to unfold naturally and inevitably from 
given conditions. Where probability is strained or character 
forced, the story weakens. The effect of a drama or story 
depends much upon the arrangement of cKmaxes, suspense, 
and expositions. The study of these things demands inter- 

2 B 



370 Principles of Secondary Education 

esting acts of judgment. And when we seek to determine 
the fitness of a verse-form to the idea expressed in it, both 
judgment and taste are involved. 

It is easy and tempting to overdo this form of study. Its 
definiteness is attractive, Hke the definiteness of mathematics 
or formal grammar. But it is to be remembered that litera- 
ture is complicated, as mathematics and grammar are not, 
with quite other elements that do not lend themselves to exact 
formulation. Emotion and taste are complex, often nebulous, 
and must not be dissipated in a mistaken effort for exactness 
and formality. 

The kinds of study sketched in the foregoing paragraphs 
will not answer the question how a given selection is to be read. 
Generally it should be from several of these points of view. 
The treatment appropriate to one piece of literature is un- 
suited to another ; the presentation of the same piece of litera- 
ture will quite properly differ for different classes, or for the 
same class in the hands of different teachers. No teaching 
in the secondary school should or could exhaust all these types 
of study. Any method which reduces the teaching of the 
classics to rule and formula is pretty certain to become in- 
flexible, unsympathetic, wooden, because it loses sight, first, 
of the relative interest and values of things in any particular 
piece of literature, and, second, of the things that can appeal 
most to the given class. The attitude of the teacher should 
be that of a cultivated mind ready to help his pupils see and 
appreciate those things which at their stage they can best see 
and those things from which they can get most of information, 
wisdom, and aesthetic satisfaction. 

As to method, little need be said. It will, of course, be no 
stereotyped method that will get good results. Relevant 
information, soTaetimes got from suggested reading, sometimes 
imparted vvua wee (even brief lectures are not always bad) ; 
questions that hint at and open up new ideas ; tests of memory ; 
reading aloud, not too much, even though the teacher does 



The VernacMlar 371 

think he reads well ; enthusiastic emphasis upon the really 
significant and beautiful things ; some analysis — again not 
too much — upon what gives the beauty and significance ; 
and a large catholicity of taste regarding both literature and 
life, — these are some of the elements that make for good 
method in teaching literature. 

A few instances of this informal treatment of literature may 
make for greater clearness. Hawthorne's David Swan is 
one of the simplest stories in his Twice-told Tales. The 
author announces his theme at the beginning : Events big 
with possibilities often brush near us and pass us by without 
our knowledge. How does Hawthorne illustrate this ? Three 
possibilities, wealth, love, and death, or what might have led 
to each of these, almost come to David while he sleeps by the 
roadside. In the same book, in the story of Dr. Heidegger's 
Experiment, Hawthorne gives his answer to the question. 
Could we live our lives over again, should we live more wisely ? 
He chooses for the experiment four old people whose lives had 
been such conspicuous failures that they might well wish for 
another chance. They are given the magical water from the 
Fountain of Youth ; they drink, find their youth restored, and 
forthwith proceed to indulge in the same kinds of folly as had 
originally wrecked them. In the climax of their revels they 
upset the water, and old age descends upon them again. 
How has Hawthorne prepared for this introduction of the 
magical ? By a certain uncanny gloom and by hints of magi- 
cal things in the doctor's ofifice. How does he bring the scene 
to an end? By the breaking of the bowl that contains the 
water. His use of the mirror, his moraHzing, have his char- 
acteristic imaginative and speculative touch. 

Browning's Up at a Villa — Down in the City introduces 
a lively and volatile Italian who would, like to live' in the city, 
but cannot afford to do so. How do we know he is volatile? 
What pleasures of city life does he wish for ? The processions, 
the noises, the gossip, — the things that to him mean life. 



372 Principles of Secondary Education 

Why is the city too expensive ? We need to know about the 
heavy taxes imposed on food in ItaHan cities. What Hnes 
or phrases indicate these things ? 

But bless you, it's dear, — it's dear ! fowls, wine, at double 

the rate. 
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays 

passing the gate. 
It's a horror to think of. 

His delight in noise is as naive as that of a boy at the circus : 

Bang — whang — whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the 

fife: 
No keeping one's haunches still : it's the greatest pleasure 

in life. 
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church bells 

begin : 
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in. 

What, by the way, is " the diligence? " And what is the 
" Pulcinello-trumpet " mentioned a few lines farther on? 
And the " traveling doctor " who " gives pills, lets blood, 
draws teeth " : has — his kind disappeared? And the church 
ceremonies, in church and on the street, — have you seen any 
of them? Does our Italian who says, "I scratch my own 
(skull), sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool," pay any 
unconscious tribute to the beauty of the country ? 

You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen 
steam and wheeze, 

And the hills oversmoked behind by the faint gray olive- 
trees. 

'Mid the sharp, short emerald wheat, scarce risen three 

fingers well, 
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell 
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and 

seU. 



The Vernacular 373 

Is Browning merely laughing at our childlike friend of the 
poem ? Or does he have a kindly, smiling sympathy for him ? 
And is the man in the poem like the mass of the dwellers in 
cities to-day? Is Browning preaching a lesson, or merely 
showing us a type ? Do the lively meter and the free and easy 
colloquial diction fit the speaker and express him well ? 

But there is no end to illustrations that might be used, and, 
as I have already insisted, there is no set form that holds for 
all selections or for the second time in the same selection. 

COMPOSITION. — The term "composition" is applied 
to the grouping of figures or other objects in painting and 
sculpture, and to the grouping of ideas in language. In each 
case the end sought by such grouping is the attainment of 
certain general effects in the whole work. It is of the grouping 
of ideas expressed in words that this article treats. 

Though the terms " rhetoric " and " composition " are 
frequently found together, and sometimes confused, they 
properly designate two quite distinct phases of the subject. 
Rhetoric is concerned with the theoretical side, with the laws 
of expression. The term " composition " means (i) the appli- 
cation of those laws, consciously or unconsciously, in spoken 
or written discourse, or (2) the discourse itself. A treatise 
on rhetoric is a systematic presentation of the laws of dis- 
course, generally illustrated by specimens of such discourse. 
Composition, being the application of these laws, is therefore 
an art, as distinguished from a science. It is, moreover, an 
art that is in constant employment by all normal people, 
in either its spoken or written form ; though the difference is 
very great in the skill with which the art is practiced by dif- 
ferent people. 

The four fundamental processes of composition are dis- 
tinguished by the ends they have in view : narration, which 
aims at telling a story, or a succession of incidents ; description, 
which aims to describe or portray, and which most commonly 
makes its appeal to the visual imagination; exposition, 



374 Principles of Secondary Education 

whose purpose is to explain ; and argument, whose purpose is 
to prove some proposition. While the distinctions among 
these forms are often convenient in instruction, it must be 
remembered that the various forms are seldom found entirely- 
distinct. Narration and description are often found in the 
same composition. Moreover, the methods of the two are 
often so closely alike that it is difficult to say of certain pas- 
sages to which of the two processes they belong. Exposition 
and argument are often found together, though the line be- 
tween them is easy to draw. But exposition and description 
again often overlap each other. The full treatment of them 
belongs to the theory of rhetoric rather than to the art of 
composition, and finds no place either in the modern text- 
book of composition or in the work of the teacher. Of these 
four processes exposition is by far the most common both in 
written and in spoken language ; narration comes next in order 
of frequency. Except in literary works, descriptions are 
usually limited to a few words. Except in formal presenta- 
tions of propositions in law, science, or the like, arguments 
seldom proceed beyond a few sentences. 

Composition looks rather to the end to be attained, i.e. 
the effect to be produced, than to the employment or the 
practice of any one of these type forms of writing, though the 
laws of each must often be consciously used by the writer. 
In scientific exposition or in serious argument, however, it 
is necessary to adhere more closely to the type. 

The Teaching of Composition. — Within the past twenty- 
five years the art of composition has assumed far greater im- 
portance in the schools than ever before. So long as the ideals 
of classical study ruled the schools, and culture was thought 
to come principally from a knowledge of Greek and Latin, 
expression in English was neglected by teachers. With the 
breaking away from the classical tradition, and the increased 
recognition of the educational value in the study of modern 
life and environment, the minds of teachers turned more and 



The Vernacitlar 375 

more toward instruction in the mother tongue. The begin- 
nings of the movement go back, indeed, to the days of FrankHn 
and Jefferson. But the general movement even in some of the 
less backward schools cannot be said to have become estab- 
lished before 1885. It is now usual to find composition 
given a large share of the time of the program, and taught as 
a vital subject rather than in the occasional and perfunctory 
fashion of former days. It is now recognized as a subject of 
the greatest utility, inasmuch as every one depends for his 
pleasure and success in part upon his ability to express his 
ideas agreeably and effectively. It conduces to clearness and 
definitness in one's thoughts, to care in ordering and expressing 
them. To have tried conscientiously to say things well helps 
in the appreciation of things well said, and therefore adds to 
the enjoyment of literature. And command of one's native 
speech puts one into closer touch with the social and national 
life about him. Such are the principal arguments by which 
the present important place of composition is defended. 

Especially noteworthy are the changes in the methods 
of instruction. Theory has given place to practice; it is 
fully realized that one can learn to speak and write only by 
speaking and writing under stimulus and guidance. Rhetori- 
cal rules are worth nothing except as applied. The earlier 
teaching aimed at a sort of lifeless accuracy. Verbal and 
grammatical correctness, propriety in spelling and punctua- 
tion, were sufficient. The present-day teaching of the better 
sort judges the child's efforts not only for these things, but 
for the interest and general effectiveness of the whole com- 
position. Has he done with the subject what he should have 
been expected to do ? Does his composition show that he has 
remembered and thought ; that he has ordered and arranged ? 
Such is the standard now set up, adapted though it must be 
to the child's age and capacity. In accordance with these 
standards the training is not in the lesser units of words and 
sentences so much as in paragraphs and whole compositions. 



376 Principles of Secondary Education 

Through the influence of modern linguistic scholarship 
another influence is slowly working its way into the schools. 
Under the older — and erroneous — conception of language as a 
fixed and absolute thing, teachers often set up a rigid standard 
of grammatical and rhetorical propriety that could not be 
justified either from literature or from the speech of a large 
body of educated people. This standard, under which most 
teachers of the present day were educated, is slowly giving 
way before the conviction that a considerable latitude must 
be allowed in the choice of words and expressions ; the con- 
viction that it is often impossible to say, as between two ex- 
pressions, that one is right and the other is wrong. 

More and more the tendency is to have the pupil write of 
the familiar and concrete, of the things within his own daily 
experience, instead of the abstract and remote. It is realized 
that he can learn to write and speak best when dealing with 
simple and familiar things. Such material commonly includes 
also his school work in other subjects than English. Themes 
drawn from his readings in literature may well be included, 
but must be chosen with careful reference to the limitations 
of children's minds. 

Composition is recognized as a difiicult art, involving, as it 
does, not only the expression of ideas, but the gathering and 
arrangement of them. So far as possible these two tasks 
should be divided. When the subject is chosen, it should be 
worked over and discussed in various lights, until the pupils 
can talk of it with some degree of freedom. The writing should 
be begun only after the pupils have gained some confidence 
in their ability to talk of the subject, and, in the later years, 
are able to outline it with a fair degree of clearness. Outlines 
made by the pupils themselves are an aid to both confidence 
and clear thinking. 

In the elementary school the work in composition may be 
easily carried into other school studies, inasmuch as they are 
usually all taught by the same teacher. In the high school, 



The Vernacular 2>77 

however, the divorce between EngHsh "composition and other 
subjects is an evidence that our systems are still imperfect. 
As long as the pupil speaks and writes carelessly in other de- 
partments, so long will the work of the English teacher fail 
to form good habits. Not until all teachers cooperate can we 
hope for the best results attainable. 

As to the time of beginning the training in composition, 
and as to the amount to be required, there is still considerable 
divergence both in theory and practice. As to the question 
of how much writing should be employed there are again 
differences of opinion. In general, however, it is agreed (i) 
that short exercises are better than long, for the long ones tend 
to produce either discouragement or prolixity ; (2) that some 
writing should be done every day, the subject often being 
drawn from some of the school studies ; and (3) that, if con- 
sistent with the foregoing rule, the pupils should not write 
more than the teacher has time to read. 

This leads naturally to the question of criticizing the pupils' 
efforts in expression. The oral work should be carefully 
watched. Errors and carelessness alike should be corrected, 
generally when made, except when such interruption interferes 
with the pupil's thinking. The criticism of the written work 
is the only means of insuring its effectiveness. A few general 
principles, now commonly accepted, may be stated. Pupils 
are to be made as much as possible self -critical and self -helpful, 
though care must be taken not to develop their self-criticism 
to the point of inhibition. They must be held responsible 
for things once learned. Generally the written work, after 
the teacher has corrected it, should be returned to them, be 
worked over by them, and again submitted for inspection ; 
for if the criticisms made are not applied, they are useless. 
Work obviously careless in form and matter should not be 
accepted, if the teacher would have the pupils respect and 
value the subject. But the criticism must not stop with these 
more mechanical matters. The work must be judged for its 



37^ Principles of Secondary Education 

ideas. And, speaking relatively, the pupil must be led gradu- 
ally to value his and other work for the ideas he has got into 
or from it, as well as for the clearness and effectiveness with 
which the ideas are conveyed. For this there is no better 
means than reading the compositions aloud, having the class 
as a whole help in passing judgment upon each other's per- 
formances. In all the work of criticism the teacher's true 
function is not that of the faultfinder, but of the stimulating 
and helpful guide. If freedom and accuracy are to be attained, 
there must be a certain amount of drill. Frequent practice 
in dictation will help in giving control and facility over the forms 
of words and sentences. Of considerable value also is practice 
in saying the same thing in different ways. In brief, the work 
will be effective in proportion to the teacher's skill and resource- 
fulness. 

The prominence given to the work in composition in recent 
years is due in part to the demands of the colleges that their 
students must, at entrance, give evidence of a good course in 
English, and in a greater degree to the belief, on the part of 
the high school teachers themselves, in the value of such in- 
struction. It is especially to be noted that those high school 
courses which are not directly preparatory to college commonly 
give more time to instruction in English than is contained in 
the college preparatory courses. For a considerable period 
the desire to unify the course in English, and especially the 
literature and composition, led to forced relations that were 
not to the advantage of either. Pupils were required to write 
too frequently on literary subjects that were beyond their 
grasp, with the result that the compositions were insincere and 
futile, and the pupils' love of literature was hindered rather 
than helped. At the last meeting of the national conference on 
college entrance requirements in English (191 2), in which both 
colleges and high schools were fully represented, a report was 
adopted which, it is hoped, will tend to put the composition 
work on a sounder basis. One of its most important recom- 



The Vernacular 379 

mendations was that a considerable part of the composition 
writing should be upon such experiences as come within the 
pupil's daily life and observation. That the report was in 
harmony with the judgment of the best teachers appeared 
from the way in which it was received. 

TRAINING IN ORAL SPEECH.— In American schools 
the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth gave 
renewed emphasis to the importance of declamation through 
the increased opportunity for the public oration and the nu- 
merous occasions for display of oratorical power. The text- 
books in reading and literature, as well as even those in spell- 
ing and grammar, became filled with selections suitable for 
declamation. This replacing of the old reading materials, 
chiefly of a religious character, by those of a political, social, or 
dramatic character, had great influence on the interests and the 
character of the people. Reading and such literary studies 
as found a place in the schools came to be used chiefly to de- 
velop this power of public presentation, rather than to develop 
literary appreciation, or power to use the English language 
effectively in conversation, speech, or composition. It was 
customary, in most schools, to set aside one afternoon a week, 
or at least one afternoon a month, for a general assembly to 
be devoted entirely to declamation. These exercises seem 
to have had a marked effect upon the public speaking of the 
period, but an effect that hardly meets with modern approval. 
In general the selections were beyond the comprehension of the 
pupils or of but little interest to them. They were usually 
martial verses on the order of Bernardo del Carpio and Horatius 
at the Bridge, or the fervid perorations of an impassioned 
oration, such as Patrick Henry's Appeal to Arms. Further- 
more, these declamations were mechanically delivered in 
imitation of the pattern set by the teacher, and unlucky was 
the. pupil who misplaced a gesture or failed to inflect his voice 
in the exact manner which his model indicated. The style 
developed, not only in the pupils but in adult speakers, was 



380 Principles of Secondary Education 

bombastic and flamboyant — the style that even now appeals 
to the untutored as the very acme of oratorical perfection. 
When we hear it said that oratory or declamation is now on 
the decline, we must surmise that the reference is to this kind 
of oratory — the spread-eagle, star-reaching pyrotechnics of 
our forefathers. 

But declamation and oratory in the truest sense are not 
declining, but rather developing ; more refined standards are 
replacing the coarse ones of half a century ago, and sounder 
pedagogical principles are followed in the use of declamations 
in the schools and in the methods employed in teaching them. 
More time is now given to English than to any other subject, 
and also the child's power of free, oral expression is developed 
as the foundation for all effective work in reading and com- 
position. In company with conversation lessons, language 
instruction, reproduction of stories, and dramatization, the 
memory or primary declamation helps to develop this general 
power of effective oral delivery. If well chosen, these 
memory selections are within the child's comprehension, are 
of interest to him in their subject matter, and have a distinct 
literary excellence calculated to develop taste. The purpose 
of classroom and assembly recitation of these selections is not 
only to secure confidence before an audience, but to give a 
power of literary appreciation and a consequent ability to 
render the thoughts of the author in a sympathetic manner. 
The teacher also makes use of the declamations as a basis 
for the correction of defects in pronunciation and articulation. 
As a rule, very little is done in the matter of voice training 
and technical elocution. In teaching these selections, the 
methods generally adopted are calculated to increase the child's 
knowledge of words, impress him with a love for the beautiful 
in literary composition, and develop his general power of 
correct and pleasing oral expression, rather than to prepare 
him definitely for public speaking. But as the work progresses, 
this function of the declamation as a training in general 



The Vernacular 381 

language excellence gives way to a more distinctly oratorical 
purpose. The declamation is used more and more as a con- 
venient means of having a pupil speak in public at a time when 
he cannot be expected to say something original. 

The separation of elocution from the general training in 
English becomes clearly noticeable in the secondary schools. 
In many city high schools and private academies the work of 
elocution is in the hands of a specialist, and is not regarded as 
a by-product of the department of English language and litera- 
ture. The differences between the structure of matter meant 
to be spoken and that designed to be read are pointed out, 
and the pupil is trained to have a definite attitude toward the 
audience. In the treatment of declamation, the method is dis- 
tinctly modern. Whereas a few decades ago the pupil was 
carefully coached to imitate his master's way of rendering 
a selection, the plan now is to stimulate rather the pupil's 
self-activity and to expect a spontaneous rendition of the 
declamation, prompted by the pupil's own thoughts and feel- 
ings. It is customary for the pupil to analyze the piece care- 
fully for its meaning and to give the teacher either an oral or 
written paraphrase as evidence of the thought he gets from the 
author. The teacher guides, suggests, and keeps up the inter- 
est, but seldom recites any passage, for he is seeking, not to 
impose his own personality and mode of expression upon the 
pupil, but to bring out a sympathetic rendition of an intelligent, 
first-hand interpretation. The pupil is made to realize that 
he must faithfully represent to an audience, by his voice and 
gestures, the thoughts of another. He owes a duty to the 
author and to his hearers. The selection is a living message 
to be conveyed to others, not a " piece " to be memorized 
and mechanically ground out in close imitation of the teacher. 
During the practice with declamations, instruction is usually 
given in the elementary principles of elocution, orthoepy, and 
voice management ; and practical efforts are made to correct 
defects of delivery ranging all the way from stammering and 



382 Principles of Secondary Education 

stuttering, through nasality and dialect, to mere localism and 
mispronunciation. In some schools, where debate and ex- 
temporaneous speaking are taken up, the declamation is 
regarded as a preparation for these more original forms of 
public speaking. 

COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS IN ENG- 
LISH. — Since 1885 the preparation for college in English has 
evoked more discussion than any other preparatory subject. 
Its prominence is, however, comparatively recent. Long after 
the admission requirements in Latin, Greek, and mathematics 
were definite in form and respectable in amount, English as an 
entrance subject was not mentioned. About the beginning of 
the nineteenth century there were some slight beginnings. 
Nothing appeared, however, in the direction of the present 
full view of English as a preparatory subject, until Harvard, 
in 1874, required both literature and composition. This re- 
quirement was the germ of the present system. " Each can- 
didate," said the Harvard announcement, "will be required 
to write a short English composition correct in spelling, punc- 
tuation, grammar, and expression, the subject to be taken 
from such works of standard authors as shall be announced 
from time to time. The subject for 1874 will be taken from 
one of the following works : Shakespeare's Tempest, Julius 
Ccesar, The Merchant of Venice; Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- 
field; Scott's Ivanhoe and Lay of the Last Minstrel." This 
plan, with various modifications, was adopted by other 
colleges : by Michigan in 1878, by Cornell in 1883, by Prince- 
ton in 1885, by Columbia in 1891, and by Yale in 1894. By 
1897 as many as eighty of the leading colleges had adopted the 
general plan. Some of the colleges examined on only a single 
author, as Cooper, Irving, or Goldsmith. But gradually 
the list grew, until, by 1895, ten or twelve books were required 
by many of the colleges in place of the half dozen of the 
earlier requirement. There was still, however, great diversity, 
not only in the books required by the various colleges, but also 



The Vernacular 383 

in the nature of the examinations. As a result, in a subject 
at best so indej&nite as English, the fitting schools found their 
task seriously compHcated, Various attempts were made to 
unify and standardize the requirements. The first were by 
the New England Commission of Colleges in 1885, and by 
the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the 
Middle States and Maryland in 1887. In 1894 the recom- 
mendations of these two associations were brought together 
and a revised list of books was agreed upon by both, and 
adopted. This list was accepted also by the Association of 
Southern Colleges and Preparatory Schools and by the 
North Central Association. The Committee of Ten appointed 
in 1892 by the National Education Association, to inquire 
into the whole matter of secondary curricula, gave especial 
attention to the unification of the English requirements, and 
also to the formulation of a course of study and of the prin- 
ciples which should govern instruction in English. 

Since 1895 the modification of the requirements has been 
in the hands of a National Conference on College Entrance 
Requirements in English. This conference is a joint com- 
mittee composed of delegates from the college and prepara- 
tory school associations mentioned above, and also from the 
New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, 
and the College Entrance Examination Board (^.^.). The 
reports of this committee, which meets at least every three 
years, are referred to their respective associations for adop- 
tion. In one of its meetings (1897) it was agreed that the Eng- 
lish course in the high schools should be the same for the stu- 
dents who were not going to college as for those who were. In 
this and succeeding meetings of the conference, the courses 
of study were framed by the conference with this principle 
in view. Partly as a matter of convenience, and partly in 
acceptance of this view, the high schools pretty generally 
adopted the recommendations of the conference ; which thus 
came to set the norm or standard for most of the secondary 



384 Principles of Secondary Education 

instruction in English throughout the country. The recom- 
mendations, though frequently modified in the light of ex- 
perience, have not been universally satisfactory at any time, 
and are not so at present. It has been impossible to meet the 
special needs of all pupils and the special tastes and judg- 
ments of all teachers. But, none the less, the work outlined 
in these reports is substantially the course of study followed 
in almost all the good high schools and fitting schools of the 
country, and is the basis of the entrance examinations in prac- 
tically all of the good colleges which admit either upon exam- 
ination or by certificate. In order to meet the needs of schools 
which do not prepare students for college, there has been re- 
cently formed (19 12) a larger and more representative body, 
called the National Council of Teachers of English, under the 
general auspices of the National Education Association. Its 
official organ is The English Journal. The recommendations 
of this council as to the course of study in English in the 
high schools are accepted by most of the colleges, and are 
coming to set the norm especially for non-preparatory high 
schools. 

The most prominent changes in the recent recommenda- 
tions of the conference have been (i) in the direction of em- 
phasizing non-literary themes as subjects for composition, and 
(2) in enlarging the list of books from which choices may be 
made. In 1905 the conference, in response to a general and 
insistent demand for " more freedom," enlarged the list of 
books " for reading " from a list of ten required to a list of 
forty out of which ten were to be chosen. In 1908 and 1909 
the list was still further enlarged. The report of the last 
conferences, held February and May, 19 12, and making recom- 
mendations for the next three years, indicates the present 
status of the subjects. The list of books from which choices 
may be made now includes several hundred titles, the greater 
number of them in the field of fiction. The list is still de- 
ficient on the side of informational and scientific works. 



The Vernacular 385 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What books in the high school course in Enghsh have the ethical 
as a dominant interest ? 

2. What books have instruction as their main interest ? 

3. What books or poems are wholly aesthetic in their appeal? 

4. What background of general knowledge — historical, scientific, 
or social — should teacher and pupils have for appreciating books like 
the following: Silas Marner, Ivanhoe, The Tale of Two Cities (see Chap. 
XIV of Coleridge's Biographia Liter aria), The Lady of the Lake, Henry 
Esmond, etc. 

Is much of such background needed to understand the book ? 

5. Make out a list of reading which the teacher should have done 
before teaching some one of these books. 

6. What kind of "philosophical" study is needed to appreciate 
Shakespeare ? 

7. In view of the fact that Shakespeare's plays were written to be 
acted, how should they be read in school ? How much place should be 
given to the so-called "philosophical" interpretation of them ? 

8. What value is there in committing to memory fine passages from 
literature ? 

9. What are the functions and value of literary criticism for the 
teacher ? For the pupil ? 

10. What is the value of school dramatics ? Should classic dramas, 
like Shakespeare's, be employed for such purposes ? 

11. Discuss the value of literary biography of authors in the school 
curriculum. Will it help the pupil to understand the writings of Gold- 
smith ? Of Tennyson ? Of Shakespeare ? 

12. What reasons are there for training pupils carefully in writing 
clear sentences ? In making clear outlines ? 

13. Why should oral and written composition be kept in close re- 
lation with other work in English ? With other school subjects ? 

14. In what ways can other departments lend support to the 
English ? 

15. What is the difference between "declamation" and oral English? 

16. What is the modern attitude towards "oratory" ? 

17. How should poetry be read aloud ? 

18. Show by citations that modern literature is democratic in its 
ideals. Was ancient literature so ? 

19. Make out lists for guiding the pupils' reading in contemporary 
and recent literature. 

2a Discuss the value of the short story for high school courses. 
2 c 



386 Principles of Secondary Education 

REFERENCES 

Briggs and Coitman. Reading in the Public Schools. Chicago, 191 2. 
Carpenter, Baker, and Scott. The Teaching of English. New York, 

1903. 
Chubb, P. The Teaching of English. New York, 1902. 
Colby, J. Literature and Life in School. Boston, 1906. 
Cox, J. H. Literature in the Common Schools. Boston, 1908. 
Harvard College, Reports on Composition and Rhetoric. Cambridge, 

1895, and later. 
Twenty Years of School and College English. Cambridge, 1896. 
Herrick, R. Methods of Teaching Rhetoric. Chicago, 1898. 
Laurie. Language and Linguistic Method. Edinburgh, 1893. 
MacClintock, p. L. Literature in the Elementary School. Chicago, 

1908. 
ScuDDER, H. E. Literature in the Schools. Boston, 1888. 
Thurber, Samuel. Papers in the Academy (Syracuse), Education, 

Educational Review, and School Review. 
A full bibliography up to 19 13 is given in the revised edition of Carpenter, 

Baker, and Scott's The Teaching of English, cited above. 



CHAPTER X 
THE CLASSICAL LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 

LATIN 

PLACE IN THE CURRICULUM. — The position occupied 
by Latin in the curriculum of the secondary school is due 
primarily to tradition. During the Middle Ages and at the 
Revival of Learning, Latin was the medium of communication 
in science, literature, and politics. Consequently it was the 
first and most important element in education ; supplemented 
by Greek, and mathematics, it formed the whole curriculum. 
In the seventeenth century the native tongue began to form a 
small part of the course of study. This was followed in the 
eighteenth century by the modern foreign languages, and in 
the nineteenth by the various sciences. Practically all the 
time devoted to them was taken from that allotted to Latin 
and Greek. The process has continued until now Greek is 
omitted from the curriculum in practically all public high 
schools and in most private ones, and Latin has been reduced 
to modest proportions. Latin now occupies about one fifth 
of the total time of the secondary schools, but it has to main- 
tain itself against vehement criticism and opposition. The 
critics maintain that Latin is not a " practical " subject, and 
that the results of Latin teaching are entirely disproportionate 
to the amount of time which it demands. The defenders of 
Latin urge two main reasons for its retention in at least its 
present condition : (i) its value as a mental discipline, (2) its 
value as a practical subject. 

THE VALUE OF LATIN, or of any subject in particular, as 
a mental discipline, has been much impugned in recent years, 

387 



388 Principles of Secondary Education 

particularly by the psychologists ; but there is a tendency now 
apparent to recede from the extreme position in this regard, 
and there is abundant testimony from unprejudiced observers 
in all walks of life to the value of Latin as a training instrument. 
For above every other subject it trains (i) the process of obser- 
vation, (2) the function of correct record, (3) the reasoning 
power and general intelhgence in correct inference from re- 
corded observations. To this should be added its great value 
in developing the power of voluntary attention. 

The value of Latin as a practical subject has to do par- 
ticularly with the effect of the language in the cultivation of 
English style. In the English vocabulary a very large propor- 
tion of words in everyday use are of Latin origin, and it has 
been estimated that two thirds of the Latin vocabulary of the 
classical period has in some form or other come over into Eng- 
lish speech. For the correct use of synonyms in English and 
the habit of expressing one's thoughts clearly, concisely, and 
cogently, a discriminating knowledge of Latin is indispensable, 
and while not every pupil in the school may be expected to 
develop a good style, nevertheless he should be given the 
necessary foundation for it. 

When we turn to literature, we find that Latin is influen- 
tial everywhere — particularly in our classical authors — by 
allusion, by quotation, by actual domestication. Many of 
our great English writers are permeated with Latin. We can- 
not expect that all will desire to feed their minds on the works 
of our greatest authors, however much we might prefer it; 
but certainly we should not deprive them of one of the most 
important elements in their enjoyment should they be so 
minded. 

The criticism of the results of Latin teaching has borne more 
heavily in recent years, and teachers are coming to realize that 
this criticism has genuine foundation. There has been, there- 
fore, much discussion as to improvement of method, and many 
suggestions, particularly by editors of textbooks. It may be 



The Classical Laizguages and Literatures 389 

said in general that the tendency of these suggestions has been 
toward greater emphasis upon oral teaching and the testing of 
acquaintance with the language by the ability to read its ordi- 
nary forms at sight. It has been too true that the value of the 
exercise in translation, which, when properly done, should be 
very great, has been seriously impaired by the very wide- 
spread use of EngHsh translations, a practice which results in 
slow progress on the one hand, and dulled moral sense on the 
other. Then, too, in most of our colleges the classes, particu- 
larly in the earlier years, have been so large that adequate 
personal attention to individual students has been impossible, 
and this dif&culty is becoming more and more serious in sec- 
ondary instruction with the rapid growth of our public high 
schools. Administrative officers have shown a curious dis- 
inclination to treat languages with the same consideration 
that is extended to the sciences. While it is accepted without 
question that scientific instruction without individual labora- 
tory work under the eye of laboratory assistants is impossible, 
the equally obvious fact that instruction in languages without 
similar practice can be only haphazard and slipshod, is either 
not perceived or knowingly neglected. 

METHODS OF TEACHING. — Naturally in the teaching 
of any language we should begin with the essentials of gram- 
mar, together with sufficient exercises to insure the complete 
learning of the forms, and enough of the syntax to make the 
reading of simple sentences possible. This would be followed 
by easy reading, and then by more difficult reading, until the 
student acquires sufficient mastery to read with some ease 
whatever he would naturally come in contact with. And this 
is practically (with certain restrictions) what has been fol- 
lowed for centuries in the teaching of Latin. The question 
has been chiefly as to the nature of the instruction in the first 
year and the sequence of reading material. In the main 
the colleges have dominated the high school curriculum in 
America by their requirements for admission, and thus we find 



390 Principles of Secondary Education 

that for a long period the course of instruction in the high 
schools has been the beginner's book, a certain amount of 
Caesar, certain orations of Cicero, certain books of Vergil's 
Mneid. When the high school course has been four years in 
length, as is the case almost everywhere, one year has been 
devoted to every one of these four subjects. Where the 
course is five years, or six, teachers have enlarged it by the 
addition of Ovid, Nepos, Sallust, and in some cases have 
increased the time devoted to the beginner's book so as to 
spend upon it a year and a half. 

In recent years there has developed a strong feeling that the 
prescription of so much reading has a deleterious effect upon 
the teaching in the schools, and that better results could be 
attained if there were less definite prescription of authors and 
more insistence on the ability to translate easy Latin at sight. 

The first year of Latin is the most important work in the 
whole high school curriculum. This importance lies in the 
fact that the pupil is studying not only Latin, but the phe- 
nomena of organic speech. In some schools in Germany and 
in England the pupil makes his first acquaintance with a 
foreign language in the study of French; but this, practice 
has not taken root in the United States, and there the first 
serious study of linguistic expression begins in the Latin class- 
room. 

Difficulties of the Student. — Let us see for the moment 
what the problems of the Latin student are, what the Eng- 
lish-speaking child will find difficult or unusual. First and 
foremost, he will be struck by the Latin forms. EngHsh is 
practically a formless language ; the few terminations remain- 
ing are not sufficient to form a foundation for the careful study 
of the expression of ideas by means of termination. The 
pupil will now for the first time have to distinguish between the 
various cases of the noun and the various tenses and moods of 
the verb. This comes as a shock to the average Enghsh- 
speaking child, and it requires months upon months of careful 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 391 

and insistent drill before the expression of case relations by 
changes in termination becomes second nature. For example, 
in an EngHsh sentence like, " The boy strikes the dog with a 
stick," outside of the 5 in the verb no indication of meaning is 
given by any termination, and the three substantives would 
suffer no change in form, no matter what change in meaning 
might be brought about by transposition. On the other 
hand, in Latin the syntax would be expressed not merely by 
the sense, but also by a formal difference in every noun. 
Furthermore, the pupil would be troubled by even the simplest 
syntactical structure. An English sentence like, " The father 
gave his son some money that he might buy the book," is 
comprehensible to the child without any serious mental effort ; 
but in the Latin sentence he must become acquainted with the 
idea of purpose and its expression and the use of mood to 
take the place of the auxiliary. This difEculty is immeasur- 
ably enhanced when " to buy " takes the place of " that he 
might buy." Another difiEiculty which is none the less real is 
that of pronunciation. For the first time the pupil comes into 
contact with what is essentially the Indo-Germanic system of 
sound expression, from which English has seriously varied. 
Then, too, there is word order and its possibilities in an in- 
flected language. With these difficulties staring him in the 
face, and with progress made exceedingly slow on account of 
the necessity of accurate thinking along several lines at the 
same time, the first-year Latin taxes the patience, the ingenuity, 
and the skill of even the best of teachers. And in the United 
States in particular, owing to conspicuous administrative 
incompetence, the work of the first year is usually in the hands 
of the most inexperienced teacher. 

The Introductory Work ; the Customary Method. — The 
material is provided in the numerous first-year books, which 
show almost every possible idiosyncrasy of method. It may 
be said in general that they embody the carefully thought out 
schemes of the individual authors. They follow two main 



392 Principles of Secondary Education 

lines of presentation, one of which may be called the block 
system, the other the fragmentary system. In the latter — 
and by far the more influential — the lessons, particularly the 
earlier ones, are so divided that fragments of declension and 
fragments of conjugation alternate with each other ; thus, 
either the nominative singular, or the nominative and accusa- 
tive singular, or the nominative singular and the nominative 
plural of the first and second declensions are followed by the 
present indicative, singular number, or third person singular 
and plural, as the case may be. Subsequent lessons fill out 
the paradigms of the first and second declensions and the first 
conjugation, after which the other conjugations and the 
remaining declensions are taken up. In the meantime ele- 
mentary rules of syntax, such as the agreement of the subject 
and the verb, the government of the accusative case, the 
ablative of instrument, the ablative of place, the dative of 
possessor, the objective or possessive genitive, the use of ut to 
express purpose, sometimes the use of cum in the sense of 
" when," are scattered along according to the caprice of the 
author. The object of thus breaking up inflectional groups is 
to provide early in the course reading material which will have 
in itself some reason for existence, and thus avoid the aridity 
of the old-fashioned textbook. In the former class, the text- 
book gives the first declensions in their order, supplementing 
them only by so much of the verb inflection as seems necessary 
to make the construction of sentences possible ; then follow the 
conjugations in their order. The earlier exercises from Eng- 
lish into Latin and from Latin into English are largely confined 
to the translation of detached forms. The critics of the first 
system maintain that it divorces things that belong together ; 
those of the second that it makes the early Latin work not 
merely dull, but practically hopeless, because the pupils see no 
evidence of progress. As a matter of fact, the superiority of 
the first method to the second is merely specious, and the frag- 
mentary acquisition of forms carries with it many evils. A 



The Classical Langitages and Literatttres 393 

third method of presenting forms, advocated by a few, is what 
one might call the topical treatment. The pupil begins with 
the study of a case throughout all its formations, and after 
proceeding through the declensions he takes up the verb 
similarly. Every one of these three methods requires a live 
teacher to make it successful, and practically, therefore, none 
shows any superiority over the other. Theoretically the 
second method is preferable, supplemented by the third 
wherever feasible, the first being the least defensible of them 
all. 

The selection of the material of the first book involves the 
three divisions of forms, syntax, and vocabulary. It is gener- 
ally agreed that unusual forms should be excluded, on the 
principle that only those in most common use are vital, while 
the unusual ones can better be learned (if learned at all) where 
they occur. Consequently the old apparatus of rule followed 
by exception has practically disappeared, and the beginner's 
book lays particular stress upon the normaHties of language. 
This principle, however, suffers some modification in practice. 
It is frequently easier to learn the complete series, even though 
some of the elements are rare, than to break it up into frag- 
ments ; the effort of mind is often much greater in the second 
case. The terminations are best learned in groups, even 
though examples of some of them are comparatively infre- 
quent. Principal parts are best learned complete, though 
in the case of many verbs certain of them are never found. 
In the main, however, the principle is sound. In the case of 
syntax the situation is different. Comparatively little syntax 
should be given in the beginner's books, and this should be 
not necessarily the most common ; but the most simple, for 
the learning of forms taxes primarily the memory, while the 
study of syntax exercises principally the reason. Therefore 
the indicative constructions should appear in the beginner's 
books, and only those uses of the subjunctive which make but 
sHght demand upon the reasoning power, such as its use in 



394 Principles of Secondary Education 

wishes, in expressions of purpose and result, and little else. 
It is customary in the beginner's books to devote the last few 
lessons to the more elaborate constructions ; but conditional 
sentences and the whole body of constructions with dum and 
the like, quin, quominus, and concessive clauses would better 
be deferred to the second year. The same is true of the more 
involved relative constructions. 

The choice of vocabulary obviously depends upon the aim of 
Latin teaching in general. If, it is generally argued, we taught 
pupils to speak Latin as we did formerly, we should naturally 
require a colloquial vocabulary, but since our chief aim now 
is to give the means of reading Latin literature, we must choose 
the vocabulary with this end in view. A number of beginner's 
books claim to limit the vocabulary to the words in most 
common use in Caesar. This practice is sound, because it has 
been found that these words are also in common use through- 
out the literature, while birds and animals, furniture and every- 
day occupations would leave the pupil absolutely helpless be- 
fore a page of any Latin author. The size of the vocabulary 
for the first year should be about 500 words, and the text- 
books usually show about that number. But no fixed list of 
words can be learned completely by all the pupils, and a certain 
margin must be allowed for forgetfulness, consequently the 
beginner's book would do well to show a vocabulary sHghtly 
in excess of 500. 

The exercises in translation are usually divided into Latin- 
English and English-Latin. Some teachers hold that no 
translation from English into Latin should be expected until 
very substantial progress in the learning of forms has been 
secured, perhaps not until the middle of the year; but the 
weight of opinion inchnes to the view that translation from 
EngUsh into Latin should begin with the first lesson. This 
work, however, is very much more difficult than translation 
from Latin into English, and the demands in vocabulary and 
syntax should accordingly be lessened. 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 395 

The Oral or Direct Method. — Dissatisfaction with the 
results of the traditional method have led in recent years to 
the employment of the oral or direct method. The advocates 
of the latter insist that Latin should be taught as if it were a 
modern spoken language ; consequently they follow in general 
the principles of direct teaching as employed in the teaching 
of modern languages. Almost from the very beginning Latin 
is the customary language of the classroom. At the outset 
short commands and questions having to do with the necessary 
activities and surroundings of the classroom form the means of 
instruction. The pupils are required to answer every question 
in Latin and to follow every command with a statement of 
what they are doing. As they progress the range of vocabu- 
lary is enlarged, but still restricted primarily to the ordinary 
activities of life. After a little time the teacher tells the class 
short stories in Latin, explaining the meaning of unfamiliar 
words in the same tongue and requiring the class to give him 
back the story in such Latin as they can command. In this 
method translation, whether from Latin into English or from 
Enghsh into Latin, is practically unknown. This is reserved 
for the period when the pupil, having obtained a ready com- 
mand of the fundamental principles of Latin, is ready to 
begin that comparison of Latin and English idiom which ren- 
ders translation so valuable an exercise. Drill in syntax is 
obtained partly by the oral exercises, partly by written work. 
To provide for this drill the teacher may require his pupils to 
embody such and such constructions in the written work, 
while in the oral work he may have the various ideas expressed 
first in one fashion and then in another, turned from active 
to passive, or from the independent to the dependent form. 
Short narratives composed of independent sentences may be 
rewritten so as to involve various kinds of subordination. The 
effect of such training is to make the forms of the Latin lan- 
guage second nature to the pupils, and to reduce by constant 
practice the strain upon the memory. The method requires a 



396 Principles of Secondary Education 

great deal of ingenuity and readiness on the part of the teacher,' 
for every opportunity afforded by any chance remark of the 
pupil must be improved at once ; but in the hands of a com- 
petent teacher the results are claimed to be vastly superior to 
those of the old method. After some months the pupils have 
a greater grasp of the forms and easy syntax of the language, 
and are then prepared to go on to serious reading with much 
greater ease. The chief drawback of the direct method is one 
of time. The earlier stages require a great deal more time 
than is required by the old method, but the advocates of the 
new method maintain that what is lost in speed is more than 
gained in definiteness and quality of knowledge, and that in 
the subsequent years the previous delay is much more than 
made up. One of the important results of this method is 
that pupils feel that they have a certain control of the language 
and are thus relieved of the temptation to use unfair means in 
preparation. 

Very recently in the United States an attempt has been 
made to modify the traditional method by adding to it some 
of the features of the new method. Recent textbooks give 
more attention to colloquial features, and the vocabulary of 
the earlier lessons has to do with the ordinary activities of 
life. But this choice of vocabulary is intended merely to facil- 
itate the colloquial handhng of the language by the pupils, 
and is expected to give way to the normal Hterary vocabulary 
as soon as the serious reading of Latin literature is begun. 

Pronunciation. — Whatever method is employed, the initial 
difficulty is that of pronunciation. The Roman method is 
commonly employed. Objections are occasionally made to it, 
but its foundation is secure both in knowledge and in in- 
tellectual honesty. It is frequently said that we do not know 
how the Romans pronounced. This is true only to the extent 
that those who have not actually heard a modern language 
do not know how it is pronounced. We have a fairly accurate 
knowledge of the sounds of the Latin letters, and we have 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 397 

special directions as to the position of the organs of speech in 
articulation. While some of these directions come from a 
comparatively late period, — as late, in fact, as the sixth 
century a.d., — yet the laws of linguistic development show 
conclusively that the directions of this period involve certain 
preceding conditions which can be postulated with accuracy. 
To determine Roman pronunciation we have, besides the 
directions of the grammarians just alluded to, transliterations 
of Greek words into Latin and of Latin words into Greek. 
We have inscriptional evidence as to the length of the vowels, 
occasional remarks in Latin Hterature touching upon pro- 
nunciation, and the evidence presented by the Romance 
languages, which modified in transition the Latin sounds 
after a definite manner. We are able, therefore, to give in the 
textbooks the sounds of the Latin letters with practically as 
much certainty as we can the sounds of a modern language in 
textbooks for foreign use. To the ear of a Cicero a modern 
Latinist would speak with an " accent," but he would be 
understood. It is the business of the teacher to show in pro- 
nunciation a careful attention to exact enunciation and to 
require on the part of the pupils the same accuracy. The 
pupil should never hear a Latin word mispronounced by the 
teacher. The Latin that is to be translated should if possible 
be read aloud by the pupil, and such practice should be con- 
tinuous. A little careful practice every day is better than a 
great deal at intervals. The teacher should pay attention 
particularly to the quantities of all the vowels in his own 
enunciation and to syllabic division ; the pupil, however, 
should not be forced to learn anything but the quantity of 
terminations and penultimate syllables. The former should 
be learned in the acquisition of the forms, the latter on meeting 
with the new word. Inasmuch as Latin accent depends upon 
the length of the penult, it is not necessary to require a careful 
marking of the earlier syllables in the word, except where it 
is an obvious derivative of a form already known. Hidden 



398 Principles of Secondary Edttcaiion 

quantities, so called, should not be required of the pupils, 
but the teacher should be careful to pronounce them correctly 
as far as our knowledge extends. 

The Later Reading. — In many of the older English schools 
and in those American schools with a curriculum of more than 
four years, the introductory work extends over into the second 
year ; but in the new English schools and in the vast majority 
of American schools the reading of genuine Latin begins in 
earnest with the beginning of the second year. The arrange- 
ment of the curriculum for subsequent years differs in different 
countries. In general, Nepos and Caesar are taken up first, 
and then a mixed combination, composed mainly of selections . 
from Cicero, Ovid, and Vergil, but with possible substitutions 
of Livy, Sallust, and Terence, has been the habit. In the 
United States up to very recently the almost universal prac- 
tice has been to devote the second year to Cassar, the third 
to Cicero, the fourth to Vergil. The amount of Caesar pre- 
scribed (four books) has proved to be a very severe task for 
the ordinary high school class. It has involved a definite 
advance every day, and it has thus been impossible in many 
cases to take account of weak students or to linger for the 
purpose of securing thoroughness. The plan recently adopted 
decreases the amount of reading specifically required and lays 
increased emphasis upon reading at sight and the acquisition 
of additional vocabulary. 

Transition to Casar. — The transition from the beginner's 
book to Cgesar is difficult, and the pupil is apt to show a weak- 
ness entirely unexpected from the work of the previous' year. 
This is due to the complexity of the periodic sentence. Word 
order and the various devices of subordination give a great 
deal of trouble. At the outset the teacher must be content 
with short lessons in which attention is paid particularly to 
the new constructions and the new words. He should also 
devote a good deal of attention to working over the Latin 
sentence into genuine English. The class should be drilled 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 399 

in the difference between Latin and English idiom, and should 
be required to translate at least the review passage into cor- 
rect English. The work done during the class hour should 
be of two kinds : the lesson of the previous day should first 
be reviewed, and the rest of the hour should be devoted to a 
preliminary sight translation of the work of the next day under 
the guidance of the teacher. As far as possible, the home 
work should be restricted to the study of syntax (often in 
written exercises) and vocabulary. Every now and then the 
pupils should be required to write out in class the transla- 
tion of a small portion (if only four or five lines) of the day's 
lesson, and these written translations should then be criticized 
by the teacher from the point of view of the English expression. 
One such exercise is worth a dozen oral translations for the 
appreciation on the part of the pupil of the diiference between 
Latin and English expression. The teacher must never lose 
sight of the fact that from the beginning of the second year 
the most important part of the training is the development on 
the part of the pupil of the sense of style, by which is meant 
good English as an offset to good Latin. If the advantage 
claimed for the study of Latin in appreciation of English style 
is to be secured, it can be done only in this way. 

CcBsar furnishes particular problems. In the main his 
narrative is simple, concrete, narrow in range of ideas, and 
easily followed. In fact, no author in the whole Latin litera- 
ture is better suited for the reading of the second-year Latin. 
But Caesar shows a fondness for the insertion of speeches in 
what is called indirect discourse. These have nothing to do 
with the narrative, and could be omitted without disturbance. 
The length of these speeches in the first book has led many 
teachers to begin with the second book. Such a practice is 
faulty in principle ; and, inasmuch as the speeches are not 
necessary to the narrative, it is far better to begin with the 
first book, and for the teacher either to translate or to para- 
phrase the speeches as they occur in order merely to give the 



400 Principles of Secondary Education 

setting of the story. A good deal of stress has been laid upon 
the ability of the pupil to turn direct discourse into indirect 
discourse and the reverse, but it should be remembered that 
Cgesar is the only author whose style is characterized by 
indirect discourse in mass, and that, so far as the learning of 
Latin is concernedj the time devoted to the intricacies of 
indirect discourse would much better be devoted to more 
extended reading. Nevertheless, until we are prepared to 
give up Caesar, some attention should be paid to the indirect 
discourse, and the speeches might well be reviewed toward the 
end of the year, when Caesar's story is being studied as a whole. 

In studying Caesar due attention should be paid to the de- 
velopment of his narrative and to the Roman art of war. 
Pupils might be required after a compaign to write out an 
account of it, or they might be required to plan or describe a 
battle. Some attention may be paid to Caesar as a man, his 
dealings with his troops, his attitude toward the State, the 
circumstances which led to the Civil War. But of course 
these studies should be supplemental merely; for after all, 
while Cgesar is history, he is being read primarily to learn 
Latin. If the plan of preparation indicated is followed, no 
particular effort need be made to develop the power to trans- 
late at sight, but a period may be devoted, perhaps as often 
as once a week, to sight translation only. The passage read 
may be merely a further section of the advance narrative, or 
interesting passages may be selected from the later books 
or from any other Latin of approximately equal difhculty. 

During this year much attention must be paid to prose 
composition, and as this important exercise is for the purpose 
of systematic grammatical study, it should be done systemati- 
cally from the beginning. The exercises should be graded 
in difficulty, and should follow a definite plan of syntactical 
development. They should, accordingly, not be merely 
based upon a small section of the text. All that can be ex- 
pected is that the vocabulary should be that of the stage of 



The Classical Languages and Lileratures 401 

study and that the style should be narrative. If the subject 
can be made either identical with what the student is reading, 
or similar to it, so much the better. It is the habit of many to 
devote one period a week to prose composition. This is theo- 
retically objectionable. It is better that a short exercise should 
be done every day. Review exercises embodying a number of 
principles previously studied may occupy the period every 
now and then ; but one period a week devoted to Latin com- 
position involves too long an interval between efforts. Oral 
composition in connection with the reading of the day may 
often be productive of excellent results. 

When some of the Lmes of Nepos are substituted for a 
portion of the Caesar, the same general principle should be 
followed in the teaching, but the supplementary work would 
of course be different. Nepos is, however, not so suitable as 
Caesar for this stage, because his vocabulary is much wider 
and involves many unusual words, and many of the concep- 
tions are abstract. Nor does the brevity of the episodes 
serve to counterbalance the greater complexity of the periodic 
sentence. 

Cicero. — Ordinarily Caesar is followed by Cicero. Cicero 
not only represents the highest point of Latin classical style, 
but he was the greatest Roman orator and an important figure 
in the death struggle of the RepubHc. The orations usually 
chosen are the four against Catiline, the one on Pompey's 
command, and the one for the poet Archias. The orations 
against Catiline are the easiest of all, and have an important 
political significance. The Pro Lege Manilla^ in addition to 
being a comparatively early speech, marks the beginning of 
Pompey's growth as a great figure, and also forms a good 
opportunity to study the rhetorical elements in the orator's 
style. The Pro Archia is in effect a eulogy of Greek literature 
and a wonderful example of the panegyric style. Sometimes 
the teacher prefers to read a different set of speeches for the 
purpose of focusing the attention of the pupils upon some 



402 Principles of Seco7idary Education 

particular side of Cicero's multifarious career, and many 
teachers like to substitute for some of the speeches men- 
tioned selections from Cicero's correspondence, chosen either 
to show the great orator's human side or to throw sidelights 
upon the history of the period. Some teachers regard Cicero 
as dull and uninteresting to pupils, and prefer at least to 
begin the third year with Vergil. This apparently unpeda- 
gogical practice is defended on the ground that Vergil, even if 
not thoroughly understood, is interesting on account of the 
narrative, that his style is not difficult, and that outside of 
the strangeness of the poetical dress, the narrative moves 
quickly and easily. Moreover, the syntax on the whole is 
easier than that of Cicero, because of the absence of involved 
sentences. Others begin the third year with Vergil, and 
after a time they take up Cicero, completing both Cicero and 
Vergil in the fourth year. But this is all pedagogically un- 
sound. Vergil should be deferred to the fourth year, be- 
cause his writings are pure literature, and need for proper 
appreciation and enjoyment as much maturity of mind as can 
be brought to them. On the other hand, Cicero makes but 
small demands upon the mental maturity of his readers. In 
teaching Cicero it is proper to go more into detail about the 
history of the later years of the Republic and the condition of 
parties at Rome. The work of the Caesar year in this regard 
might well be amplified, and the attempt made to give the 
pupils some rational idea of the workings of the Roman con- 
stitution, but the main stress should, of course, be laid upon 
the interpretation of the speeches themselves. The teacher 
should possess a great deal of imagination, because Cicero is 
serious, ironical, humorous, jesting, or playful in turn, and his 
invective on the one side is offset by the deepest pathos on the 
other. Very often the point of the passage depends on the 
order of the words or the application of a particular word. 
References that seem blind can be lighted up by modern in- 
stances. Cicero's personal character and the main facts of 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 403 

his personal life should not be overlooked, and the teacher 
should try to lead his pupils to some understanding of the man 
whose soul was torn in two directions, who felt always the 
conflict between inclination and duty, who followed a sinking 
cause with his eyes open and remained true to his convictions 
even at the cost of life. 

Omd. — When Ovid is read, whether after Caesar or Cicero, 
it serves as an introduction to Latin poetry and to ancient 
mythology. It also relieves the early study of Vergil of the 
drudgery usually attendant upon the shift from prose to 
verse, and makes it possible to treat Vergil as literature from 
the beginning. Selections from the Metamorphoses are 
usually chosen, because the narrative is easy. The chief 
difficulty is one of word order. To relieve this some editions 
have the earlier selections rewritten in prose order. Scansion 
also is a serious exercise for most pupils, even when they have 
been carefully trained in pronunication from the beginning. 
Most teachers are content if some appreciation of rhythm is 
developed, and pay little attention to the conflict between 
verse and word accent that regularly obtains in the first part 
of the verse. Others maintain that, as Latin is a language of 
almost " level stress," the verse will scan itself, if the words 
are pronounced as they should be pronounced in prose. Few 
teachers, however, are able to reach this point of perfection, 
even in their own scanning. 

Vergil. — It has been objected that because the works of 
Vergil represent the highest reach of the Roman imagination 
and the most finished product of Roman literary art, they 
should be reserved for the later period of study, when the 
attainments as well as the maturity of mind of the student 
are greater. If we were sure that our students were going to 
continue the study of Latin for some years, this objection would 
weigh ; but the great majority of secondary pupils terminate 
their study of Latin with the high school course, and it 
seems indefensible that any should give up Latin after four 



.404 Principles of Secondary Educatioit 

years' study without having had the opportunity to read 
Vergil. 

Since most American high schools prepare for the college 
examinations at the end of their course, it becomes necessary 
in the last year to devote considerable attention to a review of 
grammar and syntax. Vergil, however, is not well suited for 
this. His style is in general very simple ; subordination is 
conspicuous by its absence ; the subjunctive constructions 
that are so common in all Latin prose are comparatively rare. 
The syntax of the cases can, it is true, be studied with some 
effect because most of the so-called poetic usages have to do 
with case constructions ; but these are the easiest, after all, 
and the pupil needs most to review the construction of the 
verb. This is best accomplished by the careful writing of 
Latin during the whole of the last year. 

The selection usually read is the first six books of the Mneid. 
This is justified, first, by its extreme interest for all kinds of 
pupils, secondly, by the fact that neither the Bucolics nor the 
Georgics treat matters of universal appeal. The subject 
and the vocabulary of the Bucolics were exotic to the Romans 
themselves. That of the Georgics is too specialized to warrant 
any great attention on the part of high school pupils. The 
first six books of the Mneid are without question the most 
important part of this poem, and they have a world interest 
which is not so much felt in the latter books. 

In teaching Vergil the aims are altogether different from 
those that dominate the teaching of Csesar and Cicero. Here 
is no place for the study of military operations, the colonial 
system or method of government, nor is there any occasion 
for investigation of party feuds and social relations. Since 
the Roman epic is a purely literary creation, stress should be 
laid as far as possible upon the literary element. The ancient 
mythology, the ancient simplicity of life, the ancient morality, 
all claim attention ; but these are subordinate to the far- 
reaching literary interest which Vergil exercises upon all 



The Classical Lajtguages and Literatures 405 

subsequent authors. Most of the school editions contain 
copious parallel passages from later literature. In many 
cases these are not genuine parallels, and the pupil gets either 
no impression or only a very vague one from reading them. 
This ought not to be the case. An attempt should be made 
to focus the attention of the students upon certain important 
features of English literature and upon certain particular 
authors who have been under classic influence. With that in 
view it would be well to treat at greater length the influence 
of Vergil upon Shakespeare, upon Tennyson, upon Milton, and 
so forth. This can be done usually with the material provided 
in the editions. The pupils should also be taught throughout 
to visualize the scenes, to form their own judgments as to 
the narrative in its various stages, to become independent in 
attitude. Here, too, extreme care should be exercised in 
translation. Poetic language should be rendered poetically. 
It will be the first experience of most students in distinguishing 
what is prosaic in expression from what is poetic, and the fact 
that Latin verse differs from Latin prose will be better under- 
stood if the difference between English prose and English verse 
is also shown. Images and metaphors should not be washed 
out. Due attention should be paid to the artistic setting, 
the picturesque qualities of every scene. The teacher should 
never lose sight of the fact that in teaching Vergil he is teach- 
ing the principles of literature in general, just as in the earlier 
years of the course he was teaching universal grammar. In 
this way Vergil ought to be not merely the proper culmination 
of the secondary Latin course, but also an important element 
of the pupil's general culture. 

Other Selections. — With a longer course Sallust's Catilina 
might be read as a foil to Cicero's Catilinarians. Variety 
may also be attained by selections from Terence or Livy, or 
by more extended anthologies, a large number of which are 
now available, adapted to the wants of pupils of different 
grades. 



4o6 Principles of Secondary Education 

GREEK 

PURPOSE AND VALUE. — It is well to begin with a 
clear idea of the end in view in learning Greek, as the first 
regulator of method in teaching it. Complete agreement as 
to that end there has probably never been ; and in four cen- 
turies views have undergone many changes. The carefully 
limited statement of the Prussian Lehrplan of 1901 is : " An 
acquaintance, based on adequate knowledge of the language, 
with a certain number of literary works of special importance 
for content and form, and by this means an introduction to 
the thought and civilization of ancient Greece." Here is 
not a word that suggests any other purpose in studying 
Greek than in stud3dng Chinese ; the official directions to 
teachers hardly touch upon what is really the heart of the 
teacher's task ; they tacitly assume, in the traditional way, 
that learning a foreign language is a radically different process 
if the language is ancient. Current formulas in England and 
America, however various in form, fall into two classes, accord- 
ing as they put in the foreground the content of the study or 
the effect on the student. But these two conceptions, instead 
of being opposed to each other, are simply two aspects of one 
mental activity ; they may be reconciled in a single statement, 
comprehensive and brief. The starting point for this is 
a great historical fact, which may be put in the words of one 
of the best-known scientists of England and America, Sir 
William Osier : " The tap-root of modern science sinks deep 
in Greek soil, the astounding fertility of which is one of the 
outstanding facts of history. . . . Though not always 
recognized, the controlUng principles of our art, literature, 
and philosophy, as well as those of science, are Hellenic." 
Corresponding to this undisputed fact of history, and some- 
how closely related to it, though we cannot here discuss the 
relation, is the following psychological fact, verified in centuries 
of experience. For minds not unadapted to it, the process 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 407 

of acquiring, under good instruction, a first-hand acquaintance 
with the Hellenic mind, as embodied in the existing works 
of ancient Greeks, is peculiarly formative, enlarging, dis- 
cipKnary. No educational instrument yet known can fully 
take the place of this, as none can take the place of mathematics. 
This brings us to the simple and comprehensive formula : 
The prime object of Greek study is to gain a first-hand ac- 
quaintance with Hellenism, as a great force in civilization ; 
the first aim in teaching Greek is to lead pupils to a personal 
acquaintance with that force. The disciplinary effect, the 
formal training, and all desirable ends, are included in that 
central aim, as auxiliary or incidental to it. That Hellenic 
force has been profound, lasting, pervasive. Along one line 
it reached even the extreme Orient, long before the Renaissance 
in Europe. It has recently been demonstrated that through 
Alexander's conquests, carrying Greek art to northern India, 
where Buddhism arose and matured, even China and Japan 
received from Hellas a potent influence on their sculpture 
and painting. And now this influence, carried eastward to 
the edge of Asia, has there met the broader stream that flowed 
westward through Europe to America and across the Pacific. 
Such far-reaching facts in the development of mankind must 
continue to urge all who would understand the intellectual 
world of to-day and the movements of history to know Hellas 
for themselves. And really to know Hellas is to take into 
one's self directly something of that original force, still un- 
exhausted, still fertiHzing the individual mind that is brought 
into real contact with the art, literatur.e, and thought of ancient 
Greece. Such are the facts and experiences that must draw 
many of the stronger and more aspiring minds to this study. 

The Approach to the Hellenic Spirit. — When we would 
approach the Hellenic spirit most directly, it is embodied, 
first, in countless examples of Greek art still existing, more or 
less injured, in European and Asiatic Hellas, and in the 
museums of Europe and America ; and secondly in a copious 



4o8 Principles of Secondary Education 

literature. Where the former are accessible, as in our larger 
cities, no opportunity to become acquainted with them should 
be neglected. But for general educational purposes literature 
has this advantage over all other arts, that its originals can 
by printing be reproduced perfectly, cheaply, and in any 
number of examples. If we will, we can know these books 
nearly as well as any Greek could. Only we must first learn 
the language, for translations are but poor copies. In school 
and college the Greek language is to be taught and studied 
primarily as offering the only direct access to the great books. 
For while Euclid and perhaps a few other authors can be ade- 
quately read in translation, neither Homer and the dramatists 
nor Thucydides and the orators nor Plato and Aristotle can 
be so read. For these the content is inseparable from the 
original form. And unfortunately Greek is a difficult language. 
Its difficulties may be considered in four groups, which pre- 
sent themselves to students in the following order. First, 
an alphabet differing in part from our own. This is the least 
difficulty, but is serious during the first weeks. Second, a 
large vocabulary, far less represented in everyday Enghsh 
than is the Latin or French. Third, a rich inflectional system, 
especially for the verb. Fourth, a wide divergence from Eng- 
lish in syntactical idiom, a divergence due chiefly to the third 
group of differences, the copious inflections. It is really the 
verb that is at the bottom of all serious troubles after the 
alphabet is learned ; and too often the verb is neglected, with 
disastrous results. Taken all together, it is not too much to 
say that as large a bulk of grammatical acquisition is required 
to prepare for the best colleges in Xenophon and Homer as 
is required for preparation in Latin and in elementary French 
and German combined. Nothing is gained by blinking these 
difficulties. It is better to face them, and attack them in 
order. 

METHOD FOR BEGINNERS. — The first step in learn- 
ing the alphabet is to copy out both capitals and small letters, 



The Classical Languages and Literahires 409 

the teacher indicating the best way of writing each where 
a question can arise. Some would follow the cursive manuscript 
forms now used in Greece. This has advantages ; but unless 
one Hves in a Greek-speaking community, keeping nearer to 
the usual printed forms leads more directly to the main goal. 
Next, the names of the letters should be copied out, in Greek 
characters, the pupil pronouncing each one aloud repeatedly. 
The written accents are so troublesome that one is inclined 
to relax the requirement of strict accuracy at first, hoping 
to take them up more carefully later. That is a mistake ; 
to correct a habit of inaccuracy once acquired takes more time 
and effort than does accuracy from the beginning. The funda- 
mental rules are few, and the whole subject less difficult than 
EngHsh accent is for foreigners. And careful pronunciation 
should accompany every step. This raises the question, 
what pronunciation ? 

Pronunciation. — As with writing, it leads most directly 
to our main goal, acquaintance with the ancient literature, to 
adopt the compromise in pronunciation which is recommended 
in recent grammars and by the Classical Association of Eng- 
land and Wales. The principle of this compromise is simple : 
to pronounce as the Athenians did about 400 b.c, as nearly 
as is practicable for our classes. The latter consideration 
leads us to adopt substantially the modern Athenian sounds 
for e, 0, ^, Q, X and to give ca a closer sound than the ancient, 
like that of German 0; the ancient sounds in these cases 
would, for our classes, be so difficult as to demand for mastering 
them a disproportionate amount of time. For the same reason 
it is not thought worth while to attempt the ancient pitch 
accents ; we pronounce them all, in the present Greek fashion, 
as we do the English stress accent. Long and short vowels, 
however, it saves time in the end to discriminate carefully; 
" hidden quantities " are few in Greek. To Plato no doubt 
our best reading would have sounded very barbarous, perhaps 
unintelligible. But so would our reading of Shakespeare's 



4IO Principles of Secondary Education 

lines have sounded to Shakespeare ; yet that does not make 
them less living to us. Some would see in this example an ar- 
gument for the modern Greek pronunciation for ancient Greek. 
That, however, is to overlook the decisive differences in the 
two cases. The change in English since 1600 has not gone 
so deep that our pronunciation destroys all Shakespeare's 
rhythm, confounds the commonest words, and turns a phonetic 
spelling into an irrational chaos. The modern Greek pro- 
nunciation does all that for Sophocles. Considering the 
centuries that have elapsed, the Greek language has been 
conservative; some of the present characteristics began to 
appear before 300 b.c. ; the popular speech of Greece is eupho- 
nious and expressive and has an interesting literature. But 
the wealth of the old literature was a constant force toward 
the retention of old spelhng, while pronunciation inevitably 
changed. When, therefore, the modern sounds of the letters 
are applied to the poetry of twenty-three centuries or more 
ago, rhythm disappears, spelling becomes chaotic, and the 
language far harder to acquire. For an approximate illustra- 
tion in EngHsh we should take, not Shakespeare, but Chaucer. 
To read his lines as verse we must return as well as we can 
to his pronunciation ; in good teaching of Chaucer that is now 
done. 

Oral Methods. — But precision in pronunciation on the 
system adopted is essential. This is one item in the appHca- 
tion of the general principle that Greek, like any foreign 
language, should be taught as a hving speech. As for " dead 
languages," of course Elizabethan English is really as dead 
as the language of Xenophon ; the latter can be made to hve 
for us in the same way as the former, and not otherwise. That 
is, ear, hand, and tongue must from the first be as accustomed 
to Greek words as is the eye, preciseh^ as in the best teaching 
of modern languages. The advance of recent years in teach- 
ing these, especially in France, Germany, and England, is even 
more needed in teaching Greek, and is just as possible. 



The Classical Langtiages and Literatures 411 

" Read, write, speak " was the rule of the Jesuit schools three 
centuries ago ; the notion that Greek and Latin are to be 
learned merely by reading, without accompanying oral use, 
belongs to the nineteenth century, and is a fundamental 
error. How much use can be made of conversation will depend 
on the knowledge and skill of the teacher ; more use can be 
made than seems possible to one who has not persistently tried 
for it. But the principle is not bound up in any " method " ; 
what it requires is that by every available means the ear be 
trained to understand Greek words when spoken, and that 
the student be accustomed to reproduce Greek accurately, 
both orally and in writing. The better the teacher's own com- 
mand of the language, the more he can vary these means, 
and the better results he will obtain. Also the more Greek 
can be used for saying what must be said in the classroom, 
the more rapid the progress. But any teacher can insist on 
good reading aloud, writing from dictation, translation from 
another's reading, and on reciting and writing from memory 
both paradigms and connected passages. By such exercises, 
too, one gains the power to go further in that direction. There 
seems to be a physiological reason for the plain fact of ex- 
perience, that a foreign tongue ceases to be alien and becomes 
a natural and living mode of expressing thought, only when, 
like the mother tongue, it is firmly held by all four kinds of 
language memory, those of the ear, hand, and voice, as well 
as that of the eye. To exercise all alike from the beginning 
makes the learner's progress more rapid, because each step is 
more secure. 

Reading. — For mastering regular Attic inflections, and 
of course for obtaining any considerable vocabulary or a fair 
knowledge of ordinary syntax, two things are indispensable. 
These are a large amount of reading in easy Attic prose, and 
along with this, not after it as a special exercise, much re- 
productive use of the language. To both too little attention 
is given in American schools. Those who condemn Greek com- 



412 Principles of Secondary Education 

position from the notion that this is taught as an end in itself 
are attacking a man of straw ; nowhere has it ever been so 
taught. But for learning to read any language accurately no 
other means can take the place of writing. And if to prepare 
pupils rightly for the examination in elementary French or 
German some two hundred pages of reading are requisite, how 
much Attic Greek must be read to obtain equal proficiency in 
the far more difficult language? Can one hundred and fifty 
pages of Xenophon suffice? Probably five hundred would 
be nearer the mark. The disproportion and the error of 
method in the usual practice are plain. Rereading and learn- 
ing by heart, good as they are, do not meet the need. Too 
much rereading dulls the interest, and that is a capital mistake. 
What an eager young mind craves is variety, new combinations, 
the repetition that comes with these is more effective than 
twice that repetition through reviewing. For the vast ap- 
paratus of Attic conjugations, for the two or three thousand 
fundamental words, and for the common syntax, no single 
one hundred and fifty pages can offer enough combinations. 
Still more is this true of what we group together as idioms, the 
un-English ways of saying things, ways that grow naturally 
from the wealth of inflections, but are impossible in a language 
so little inflected as English. Just because they are unnatural 
to us, but are the warp and woof of Greek expression, the pupil 
must become familiar with a mass of them by meeting them 
in scores of variations ; to repeat a few of the combinations 
a score of times is not enough. How to meet this difficulty 
is a serious problem, which we have scarcely faced, much less 
solved. The solution is to be sought in two places. First, 
a large amount of simple Attic prose, as varied as possible, 
should be read before the Anabasis. Disconnected sentences 
will not serve, for several reasons ; first, because they are 
intolerably dull. And nothing read before the Anabasis 
should destroy the freshness of that interesting story by 
anticipating its distinctive vocabulary or its narrative ; de- 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 413 

tached sentences that spoil both by anticipation are a pedagog- 
ical sin. In part the place must be filled by modern composi- 
tions. A Greek Boy at Home, by Dr. W. H. D. Rouse 
(London, 1909), whose experimental work in the Perse School 
at Cambridge (England) has for a decade been doing much for 
classical teaching, can be commended from personal experience 
as interesting and practical, and it can be taken up in the first 
week. It has the merit, too, of introducing early the com- 
monest particles and idioms of sentence connection, which 
play so much larger a part than in Latin or any modern 
language. Later some parts of Lucian can be used ; when the 
need is more widely realized, a wider choice of suitable texts 
will soon be provided in convenient editions. Secondly, we 
must not be afraid to postpone a little the reading of Homer, 
that the immortal epics may be the better enjoyed. Colleges 
that have classes for beginners in Greek are as directly con- 
cerned as the schools in attacking such questions as these, 
though it should not be forgotten that details of the solution 
may be much affected by the age of the class and by their 
previous studies. We must here confine ourselves to general 
principles, observing that youths of fourteen or fifteen can 
learn paradigms, and perhaps can learn passages by heart, 
more easily than those of eighteen or older, while the arguments 
of the orators. and the thoughts of Plato's Apology, Euthyphro, 
or Crito are harder for young people to comprehend. 

Minor Principles of Method. — Three topics, under the 
general subject of method, still demand a few words. First, 
six hours a week in the class are far more than twice as effective 
as three hours ; less than five hours a week means a sad loss of 
efficiency in the first year of any foreign language. The 
secret of the rapid strides which children make in learning 
German when living in Germany is not in the increased number 
of hours given to study, but in the increase in the number of 
hours of exposure to German, with the constant gentle urging, 
which daily life brings upon them, to listen and talk as well as 



414 Principles of Secondary Education 

write and read. The classroom is a poor substitute for all 
that, but is the best we have ; we should make as much of it 
as we can. Second, in the writer's experience, Greek syntax 
makes little trouble for pupils who have really learned the 
inflections. It is hazy notions about these that make syntax 
and syntactical idioms appear hard. The thing to emphasize 
constantly during the first five hundred pages of reading in 
Attic prose is the inflections, particularly of verbs ; without 
a firm grip on these a student can have no real knowledge of 
Greek, but only invertebrate and feeble notions, which were 
better replaced by a real knowledge of French. And a teacher 
must not expect this mass of forms to be fully digested until 
several hundred pages have been read, with much reading 
aloud and writing and much reviewing of set paradigms. 
Third, what is commonly known as " sight reading," if 
treated as a separate exercise and as somehow distinct from 
right reading, is a snare and a delusion. Reading is merely 
taking the writer's meaning from his words, written or printed. 
Reading Greek or French is not different in that respect from 
reading English. The pages a pupil is set to read should 
be properly graded to his previous attainment. That being 
assumed, every sentence should be first read as well as possible 
at sight. That is, the pupil should be trained always to take 
the sentence as it comes, gathering the meaning as he proceeds, 
from all the indications before him. Precisely as, in learning 
the mother tongue, children enlarge their knowledge mostly 
by inferring from the context and the situation, so a great 
deal that is new can be inferred on every page. For some 
months all this new reading should be done in class, the teacher 
giving the meaning of new words when this cannot be in- 
ferred, but guiding the class to make all needed inferences that 
can be made on the basis of what they already know. This 
practice both increases speed and habituates to the right 
method, while it still leaves plenty for the pupil to do in review- 
ing the same passage for the next session. But any kind of 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 415 

reading which cultivates a habit of stopping short of a close 
approximation to the writer's exact meaning is vicious. The 
purpose of those who first gave vogue to " sight reading " 
was to increase the pitifully small amount of reading then 
usually done ; the purpose at least was good. 

The above outline deals only with the teaching of the lan- 
guage in the early stages. This is not the place for the dis- 
cussion of method in the more advanced work of the college, 
after a fair reading command of the language is acquired. 

PLACE IN SCHOOLS. — The schools of different countries 
have developed on such different lines that comparisons in 
regard to any branch of study are difficult to make and are 
peculiarly open to misunderstanding. The intense interest in 
Greek during the earlier Renaissance soon decHned. It was 
in Protestant Germany and England that Greek literature 
was most highly esteemed, permeated most thoroughly the 
highest intellectual life, most strongly influenced the men who 
created the modern classics, and there it has held the largest 
place in the school training of the educated class. 

For German schools a new era began with the reorganization 
of the Prussian educational system after the humiliation of 
Prussia by Napoleon. The school which led to the university 
and was intended for the early training of all members of 
the learned professions and all higher state officials, though 
it was open to all boys whose parents could send them, 
was the gymnasium. This was meant to be the stronghold 
and propagator of the New Humanism, the heart of which 
was the appreciation of Hellenism, as exemplified in all the 
makers of classical German hterature, notably in Lessing, 
Goethe, and Schiller. Latin was given the largest place in the 
new gymnasium, but Greek stood beside Latin for the last 
six years of the course. And without passing through this 
course there was no entrance to the university, therefore none 
to a profession or to high civic office. The Prussian schools, 
controlled by the state, were on the whole so superior that they 



4i6 Principles of Secondary Education 

became the general model for all other German states. Further, 
the privileges granted only to state schools made it impossible 
for good private schools for boys to grow up beside the state 
schools. The system as a whole amounted to a degree of 
propulsion toward the study of Greek such as England and 
America never approached ; that of France was similar, but 
less rigid. Two large results followed. First, Greek was 
taught and learned with a thoroughness nowhere else equaled 
by so large a fraction of the youth of a country. Second, as 
mathematics, natural science, the native and other modem 
languages and literatures became more and more important 
for a hberal education, and yet could not be adequately rec- 
ognized in schools that gave so much time to classics, the 
revolt against this educational monopoly was most justified, 
and was strongest in Germany. The centralized state control 
made it harder than in America for public opinion to effect 
changes; but changes had to come. Under the present 
Emperor they have been coming rapidly, and are likely to 
go much farther ; and Greek is the subject most affected by 
them. In two ways Greek is crowded out. First, students 
are now admitted to university privileges from other schools, 
without Greek ; second, more room for modern subjects must 
be found in the gymnasium by restricting the time allotted 
to Latin and Greek. As one manifestation of the latter 
tendency, the plan of the so-called Frankfort system seems 
to promise most for the retention of Greek. By this plan 
Latin is not begun till the fourth year of the nine-year course, 
being preceded by three years of French. Greek is not begun 
till two years later, and is then studied intensively for four 
years. If this shortening of the time leads to the adoption 
of improved methods of teaching, along the line of the vastly 
improved teaching of modern languages that is now enforced 
in all Prussian secondary schools as in all French lycees, 
probably more Greek can be taught than was possible under 
the old plan. 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 417 

In England the establishing of classical schools in the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries was a widespread movement, 
as truly popular as any such activity could be in those times. 
It was always recognized that many who desired higher edu- 
cation, and who would by it be fitted to render public service 
in church and state, were sons of poor parents. Hence every 
educational foundation provided in some form for gratuitous, 
or partially gratuitous, teaching of a certain number of poor 
boys. In all such schools Greek was a firmly established 
subject of study by 1660, and has continued to be so. In the 
latter half of the last century a " modern side," without Greek, 
also became usual, and a demand for exemption from Greek 
for university entrance made itself felt. The newer univer- 
sities do not require it, and the question is under discussion 
at both the older institutions. At Cambridge German or 
French is allowed as a substitute for Greek in the regulations 
for the " Examination in Modern Languages for the Ordinary 
Degree," an innovation which probably foreshadows a like 
concession with regard to the requirements for the " Previous 
Examination." At Oxford, however, the proposal to make 
Greek non-compulsory in the cases of candidates presenting 
themselves for honors in mathematics and natural science was 
rejected in Congregation (November, 191 1) by a majority of 
236. As regards the preparatory schools the Report of the 
Curriculum Committee (1910) suggesting that Greek should 
not be commenced " until a boy had reached a certain stand- 
ard in other subjects, such as English, Latin, and French," 
was laid before the Headmasters' Conference at Sherborne, 
and is still awaiting their formal consideration. But nowhere 
else is Greek more firmly intrenched in the estimation of the 
educated classes than in England and Scotland; this must 
have for a time a conservative effect in the schools. The 
amount of time traditionally given to the subject, however, 
must certainly be diminished, and also the number of those 
who drop out by reason of failure to attain, before the age 



4i8 Principles of Secondary Education 

limit, the standard set for the successive forms. It should 
be added, on the other hand, that youths to whom the subject 
is adapted, and who take the full training of a fine English 
school, including verse-composition, and then honors in classics 
at Oxford or Cambridge, obtain a fuller mastery of the Greek 
language and a deeper understanding of Hellenism than is 
imparted by the corresponding course of any other country. 

In America, the English colonists, following the example 
of the mother country, began early to found grammar schools, 
in which Latin should be taught, and a beginning of Greek 
in the New Testament. Before the Revolution also the endow- 
ment of " academies " as another class of secondary schools 
had been well begun and it continued into the last century, to 
be succeeded by the still more popular movement for estab- 
lishing free public high schools. One of the chief functions 
of the academy, as of the grammar school, was to fit boys for 
college, and hence to start them in Latin and in the elements 
of Greek; the high schools were intended rather to furnish 
a better education for those who would not go to college. 
Preparation for colleges of the old type was for them always 
a secondary aim ; and has been more and more subordinated 
as the other aim has broadened and turned more toward 
vocational training, or at least toward such teaching as would 
more directly facilitate bread winning. In the newer states, 
of course, where the state universities have always given more 
attention to applied science and purely modern subjects, the 
high schools of each state have stood in close connection with 
its university; but that brings them no nearer to Greek. 
The great increase in the number of pupils whose home speech 
is not English has been a large factor in this development of 
the high schools. Accordingly, while many of the earlier 
high schools included Greek in the curriculum, few, except 
large high schools, now do so, and many of the largest, as in 
New York and Chicago, do not. In many states, as Iowa 
and Minnesota, no high schools teach any Greek. The 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 419 

surviving grammar schools and larger academies generally 
teach it to those who desire it. Meantime, with the increase in 
wealth and advance in ideals of education, the demand for 
proprietary and endowed schools of the highest class has 
lately been growing. This has filled to overflowing the exist- 
ing schools of this sort, and has brought into being many new 
ones. These are largely, if not primarily, preparatory for 
college and technical schools, and hence include Greek for 
those who wish it. They may prove to be one of the strong- 
holds of Greek instruction, since they are in a better position 
for adopting improved methods of teaching than are the 
public schools, and their teachers' advice carries more weight 
with parents and pupils. Finally, it should be mentioned that 
the Roman Catholic Church maintains not a few colleges and 
schools, including some for girls, in which Greek is taught. 
Also, some groups of immigrants from Germany have been 
active in providing classical teaching for their sons. Notably 
the Lutherans have a series of flourishing schools more closely 
modeled on the German gymnasium than any others in 
America. 

Amid the conflicting currents of life in America it is difficult 
to sum up the present situation with reference to Greek 
study, and impossible to foretell the future. The mate- 
rialistic trend of the whole modern world toward money-get- 
ting is hostile to studies that seem to have no direct bearing 
on that. On the other hand, the deep idealistic strain and 
the passion for the best that are so characteristic of the race 
that America is slowly forming out of many heterogeneous 
elements, offer ground for hope. Whatever the teachers of 
Greek can lead their pupils to feel, in adult life, has been 
good in their own mental experience, will be kept and made 
available for their children. 



420 Principles of Secondaiy Education 

VISUAL AIDS 

LATIN AND GREEK. — The various schoolbooks, in- 
cluding beginners' books and editions, are now, as a rule, 
profusely illustrated with maps, diagrams, pictures of ancient 
sculpture and coinage and, in the case of Caesar, with photo- 
graphs of the present appearance of the ancient battle fields. 

Besides the textbooks, however, there are many other 
pubhcations for the use of students and for classroom illus- 
tration. Of prime importance are large maps, the best of 
which are those of Kiepert (Reimer, Berlin). There are 
numerous school atlases in all countries. 

A capital book is Hill's Illustrations of School Classics 
(London, 1903), which gives numerous illustrations covering 
the fields of religion and mythology, history, and antiqui- 
ties, with a special chapter on buildings. This may be well 
supplemented by Schreiber's Atlas of Classical Antiquities 
(Macmillan, 1895). 

Lantern slides have been prepared in great numbers by 
G. R. Swain, Lockport, Illinois, to illustrate Caesar's life and 
campaigns (400 slides) and Greek and Roman archagology in 
general. The Records of the Past Exploration Society 
(Washington, D.C.) have issued forty slides illustrating Vergil's 
jEneid as well as sets illustrating Pompeii (50 sHdes), Homer 
(65 slides), and Greek and Roman mythology (50 slides). 
These are expensive, but very fine. Excellent and cheap half- 
tone prints of classical architecture and sculpture are issued 
by the Bureau of University Travel, Boston, Massachusetts; 
the Perry Pictures Co., Maiden, Massachusetts ; A. W. Cooley, 
Auburndale, Massachusetts. Washington University, St. 
Louis, will furnish sUdes based on the remains and reconstruc- 
tion of the Saalburg Camp. 

For the Galhc War we have also Oehler's Bilder- Atlas zu 
CcBsars Bucher de hello Gallico (Leipzig, 1890), and Von 
Kampen's Quindecim ad Ccesaris de hello Gallico commentarios 



The Classical Langttages and Literatures 421 

tabula (Gotha). L. Gurlitt, has also published six An- 
schauungstafeln zu Coesars helium Gallicum (Gotha). 

W. B. Harison of New York has issued a very extensive and 
cheap collection of Illustrations for History Notebooks, in 
which there are outline maps as well as illustrations of every 
conceivable ancient object. These can be made very service- 
able. 

Visual aids have a prominent place in the direct method. 
For this purpose Dent and Co. (London) have issued a number 
of colored Wall Pictures of Roman Antiquities. These may 
be supplemented by Launitz's Wandtafeln zur Veranschau- 
lichung antiken Lebens (Cassel). Cybulski's colored Tabulce 
quibus antiquitates GraccE et Romance illustrantur (Leipzig, 
Koehler) are also invaluable for such use. Bell and Co. 
(London) have recently issued a series of sixteen colored picture 
cards, with vocabularies and exercises covering a similar ground. 
The pictures in Gurlitt's Lateinische Fibel and Lesebuch (Berh'n) 
could easily be reproduced, and would give much variety to 
the material. 

Especial reference should be made to Hensell's Modelle zur 
Veranschaulichung antiken Lebens (Diesterweg, Frankfurt 
a.M.). These models have to do with ancient clothing and 
life and with mihtary engines. They could easily be re- 
produced by the manual training department of any school. 
They are not expensive when the size and demand for such 
models is considered. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What in recent years has been the tendency in the American high 
school in the number studying Latin ? Greek ? 

2. Compare the amount of time devoted to Latin in the American 
high school with that given in the various types of secondary schools 
of European countries ? 

3. What difference in the resuhs of the study of Latin are discoverable 
in a comparison of American high schools with European secondary 
schools ? In methods ? In textbooks ? In curricula ? 



42 2 PiHnciples of Secondary Education 

4. Test the assigned values of the study of Latin in a study of any 
one given high school, with students now in school. With graduate stu- 
dents. Compare Greek. 

• 5. Compare these results with the results of similar tests for other 
subjects. 

6. Compare in any one high school or other institution the general 
class or school standing of students taking Latin or Greek with those 
who do not. In what respects does such a study give evidence of the 
educational value of the subject, and in what respects not ? 

7. In what respects are the problem of interest and the problem of 
effort in education revealed through the study of Latin ? Of Greek ? 

8. To what extent is the oral method of teaching applicable in Latin ? 
What peculiar values does it have ? 

9. What visual aids to the teaching of Latin and Greek can be used 
and to what extent should they be used ? What are the pedagogical and 
the educational value of such aids ? 

10. Can the values of the study of Latin or of Greek be measured by 
quantitative methods ? 

REFERENCES 

Bennett, C. E., and Bristol, G. P. The Teaching of Latin and 

Greek in the Secondary School. New ed. London and New York, 

1911. 
Breul, Karl. Greek and its Humanistic Alternatives in the "Little-Go.'' 

Cambridge, 1905. 
CooKSON, C. Essays on Secondary Education. Oxford, 1898. 
Corcoran, T. Studies in the History of Classical Teaching. Dublin, 1 9 1 1 . 
Eckstein, Fr. A. Lateinischer und Griechischer Unterricht. D. H. 

Heyden, Ed. Leipzig, 1887. 
England. Board of Education. Publications, particularly : 

The Teaching of Latin in the Perse School, Cambridge. Educational 

Pamphlet No. 20. London, 1910. 
The Teaching of Greek at the Perse School, Cambridge. Educational 

Pamphlet No. 28. London, 1914. 
The Teaching of the Classics in Secondary Schools in Germany. Special 

Reports, Vol. 20. London, 1910. 
Garne, J. B. Handbook for High School Teachers of Latin. Cape 

Girardeau, 1909. 
Headlam, J. W. Teaching of Classics in Secondary Schools in Germany. 

In England, Board of Education, Special Reports, Vol. XX. Lon- 
don, 1 9 10. 



The Classical Languages and Literatures 423 

Hecker, E. a. The Teaching of Latin in Secondary Schools. Boston, 

1909. 
Jones, W. H. S. The Teaching of Latin. London, 1906. 
Kelsey, F. W. Latin and Greek in American Education. New York, 

1911. 
Kohl, O. Griechischer Unterricht. Langensalza, 1898. 
Matthias, A.. Praktische Pddagogik fiir hohere Lehranstalten. Munich, 

1908. 
MiCHAELis, G. Welche Forderung kann der lateinische Unterricht an 

Reformschulen durch das Franzosische erfahren? Marburg, 1902. 
Norwood, C, and Hope, A. H. Higher Education of Boys in England. 

London, 1909. 
Recommendations of the Classical Association on the Teaching of Latin and 

Greek — being a series of Reports by committees. London, 1912. 
Rouse, W. H. D. Classical Work and Method in the Twentieth Century. 

London, 1 908. 
Teaching of Latin and Greek. Proc. Scotch Classical Assoc, 1910- 

1911. 
The Teaching of Classics (brief description of his application of the 

direct method to Greek and Latin). In Athenceum, Sept. 17, 1910, 

pp. 323-325- 

Sabin, F. E. The Relation of Latin to Practical Life. Chicago, 1913. 

Sandys, J. E. A History of Classical Scholarship frotn the Sixth Century 
. B.C. to the Eighteenth Century in Germany, and the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury in Europe and the United States. Cambridge, 1903-1908. 

The School for the Reform of Latin Teaching. Reports for 1911, 1912, 
1913, 1914. London. 

Slaughter, M. S. The High School Course in Latin. Madison, 1908. 

Watson, Foster. English Grammar Schools to 1660. Cambridge, 1908. 

Woodward, Wm. H. Studies in Education during the Age of the Ren- 
aissance, 1400-1600. Cambridge, 1906. 

The Year's Work in Classical Studies, edited annually by W. H. D. 
Rouse for the Classical Association (London, John Murray), con- 
tains each year a report on recent pedagogical discussions. 
See the files of the Journal of Education (London) and School World 

(London), especially since 1910, on the status of Greek at Oxford. 

The Classical Weekly, published at Columbia University, New York, 

and the Classical Journal, published monthly at the University of Chicago, 

contain much material relating to the classics in American schools. 

So also do the files of the School Review, University of Chicago, and the 

Educational Review, edited by President Butler of Columbia University. 



CHAPTER XI 
MODERN LANGUAGES 

PURPOSE OF STUDY OF MODERN LANGUAGE.— 

Modern languages are studied in the secondary school primarily 
for their practical value. Through the choice and study of 
material a cultural value is added. Moreover, the processes 
involved in learning a foreign language are conceded to have 
general educative value ; they serve to clarify, deepen, and 
broaden one's knowledge of language in general as a vehicle 
of thought. The practical goal sought in the course may be 
regarded from at least two points of view. We may stress 
the utilitarian side, the practical oral control of the language, 
allowing the reading of books to appear as a natural out- 
growth, or we may make reading the chief aim. The first 
way might seem upon the surface both a desirable and a 
logical one to pursue. Yet experience teaches us that the 
school is not a favorable place for the acquisition of a lan- 
guage technique commensurate with the energy that would 
have to be expended and for which there is not sufficient time. 
The field of reading, on the other hand, is not only broad and 
cultural, but the kind of work required to teach pupils to 
read successfully is quite in keeping with school conditions. 
Moreover, the ability to read a language is more likely to be 
of permanent practical value than any conversational knowl- 
edge that might conceivably be gained in school classes. 

METHOD. — Pronunciation. — The importance of teaching 
the foreign sounds correctly in the early weeks of the modern 
language course cannot be too strongly emphasized. The work 
should be largely upon an imitative and oral basis, the teacher 
acting as model. It is also important that he possess a working 

424 



Modern Languages 425 

knowledge of phonetics. This will insure the right attitude 
toward this element of the course, and enable him to diagnose 
and correct mistakes wherever imitation is insufhcient as 
a guide. Whether the pupils themselves shall be taught 
phonetic terminology and the foreign sounds at first by means 
of transcribed texts is a moot question. There are good argu- 
ments both for and against, particularly when dealing with 
a language like French. In any case, it is fundamental 
that there should be abundant practice in hearing and utter- 
ing the sounds of the new language. 

Oral Practice. — Although intelligent reading is the chief 
end sought, a great deal of attention ought to be given to work 
in hearing and speaking, because of their very positive value 
in classroom procedure. In general, emphasis upon the spoken 
word makes for greater flexibility in the treatment of the ma- 
terial. It is stimulating to both teacher and pupil. Imitation 
and repetition are fundamental means of acquiring a new 
language, and if oral exercises in the foreign tongue are em- 
ployed with judgment, there is no kind of work which allows 
and suggests to the teacher greater abundance of repetition, 
and hence tends to make right associations habitual. More- 
over, the constant use of the foreign language in the classroom, 
in the form of commands and well-directed questions and 
answers, favors the formation of a SprachgefUhl, or language 
sense, an indefinable though undoubtedly a potent factor 
in the acquisition of a foreign language. The amount of time 
to be devoted to work in speaking cannot readily be determined. 
In general, however, practice seems to favor greater emphasis 
proportionally during the elementary stage, at a time when a 
great deal of drill is necessary to acquire the grammatical 
forms and a working vocabulary. But throughout the course 
it should be the rule to have regular oral practice carefully 
graded and coordinated with all other elements of the course. 
Only in this way can we be assured that it shall be beneficial 
in the work. The scope of work in speaking and its distribu- 



426 Principles of Secondary Education 

tion in the different years of the course, its relation to other 
elements such as reading and grammar, have not as yet been 
satisfactorily worked out, particularly for the later stages. 
Adequate books and specially trained teachers are still lacking. 

The earliest material will probably be best selected from 
objects in the immediate environment ; and wall pictures, if 
judiciously employed, will be of great assistance in planning 
the elementary work. The bulk of the material for the second- 
ary school, however, should be chosen from connected reading- 
texts. In the elementary stages these will consist of simple, 
constructed texts or natural texts that are rich in certain 
grammatical forms or vocabulary. Later the regular annotated 
stories, etc., may be made the basis for conversational practice. 
Still, for many reasons, chief among which are that the reading 
texts may not lend themselves to conversational treatment, 
that the vocabulary may be too uncommon or too highly 
literary in character, and above all that the selections may 
be too difficult, it would seem advisable on the whole to have 
separate texts for conversational practice, carefully organized 
as regards vocabulary, content, and form. Graded material 
dealing with foreign life and customs is suggested. 

Work in speaking may be roughly divided into two kinds : 
(i) highly formal in character, (2) a more natural kind, which 
emphasizes the thought as well as the form side of the material. 
The first kind will consist of various changes in the sentences 
read, in person, number, tense, voice of the verb, and sub- 
stitutions of pronoun for noun, etc. Questions may be put 
in such a way as to force the pupil to employ the desired gram- 
matical form. The second type will consist largely of rapid 
questions and answers upon the day's reading. In the earlier 
stages the questions and answers would closely follow the 
printed text, later the text might be used merely as a starting 
point for conversational practice, the pupils drawing their 
answers from their general knowledge of the spoken language. 
From time to time the class would be encouraged to relate 



Modern Languages 427 

the contents of a part or the whole of the material thus in- 
tensively studied. Success, however, in the later stages de- 
pends upon the thoroughness with which the so-called ques- 
tion and answer work is done. In any high school course 
simple questioning on a suitable connected text should occupy 
the major portion of the time in oral practice. It is only in 
this way that fluency and the requisite accuracy are assured. 

Grammar. — Whatever other value the study of grammar 
may have in the mental training of the pupil, its immediate 
value is to enable him to acquire the foreign language on the 
form side systematically and intelligently. Only essential 
forms and usages should be selected, and these should be 
taught by constant practice rather than by drill upon rules. 
Correct habits of use should be regarded as of more importance 
than the mere learning of paradigms. In general, the treat- 
ment of grammar should be inductive at least in spirit. Tra- 
ditional grammar teaching regards the translation of a number 
of detached sentences from and into the mother tongue as the 
chief exercise for clinching the previously studied formal rules. 
More recent teaching, however, lays great stress upon ex- 
ercises planned to give a great deal of oral and written practice 
carried on in the foreign language itself. Some of these ex- 
ercises have been suggested under the preceding topic, such 
as changes of tense, number and person, etc., based upon dis- 
connected sentences or connected reading material. The 
filling out of appropriate endings and a large variety of exercises 
all serve to give more copious and quicker drill than the older 
translation method. Of greater importance than these, 
however, are the more or less formal question and answer drills, 
in which the teacher's questions force the pupil to employ 
the new grammatical principle or form. Many of these ques- 
tions will be type questions, that is, one question will admit 
of a comparatively large number of answers, each one of which, 
however, will contain the required principle or form. The 
judicious employment of this so-called living grammar teach- 



428 Principles of Secondary Educatioji 

ing is of great advantage in giving quick, definite, and withal 
interesting drills which to a large extent are wanting under 
the still widely prevaiKng plan of translating detached sen- 
tences into the foreign tongue. 

In a course lasting four years it seems highly desirable, in 
German at least, to have the first grammatical course extend 
over two years. The last two years might then be spent in 
giving richer practice and somewhat broader treatment. This 
plan, however, is not practiced in the majority of schools, 
with the result that pupils in the higher classes are often weak 
both in knowledge of forms and in the abiHty to use them 
accurately for the expression of simple thoughts in the foreign 
language. 

Written Work. — Work in writing should accompany at 
every step the oral work in the German classroom. As a rule, 
it should follow directly the oral development of, and drill 
upon, the grammatical topic. After the material has been 
first threshed out orally in the classroom, it should then be put 
into writing, for the time being the final form. As not every- 
thing can be written, the work should represent that which 
is typical and essential in the lesson or series of lessons. The 
results obtained from writing are fairly obvious. Hand and 
eye serve to fix the oral impressions, and it checks up the work 
on a given topic. Further, it makes for greater definiteness 
and flexibility in the work done outside of class. In the early 
stages, however, it is better to have much of the written work 
done in class, and thus controlled and corrected at every step. 
But wherever done it is a wise procedure to ask of pupils that 
they shall employ in their written exercises only the materials, 
vocabulary, and principles, with which they are quite familiar 
through previous study. 

Work in writing may be of two kinds : (i) exercises largely 
imitative in character, (2) exercises in translation, involving 
comparison between the mother and the foreign tongue. The 
latter type is still largely employed in all stages of the course. 



Modern Langtiages 429 

Recently, however, teachers have found that written exercises, 
similar to, and in fact growing out of, the conversational 
practice, are productive of better results. In addition to the 
more formal exercises which emphasize a certain grammatical 
fact, the simple narrative of the day's lesson, and the intro- 
duction in the upper classes of the letter form of composition, 
offer a rich field for development. Over against this rather 
modern procedure, we find a large proportion of teachers still 
faithful to exercises in translating from the mother tongue 
into the foreign. In the early stages the exercises consist of 
detached sentences arranged under the appropriate gram- 
matical headlines in the textbook. Later, a graded composi- 
tion book, containing various styles of writing, is employed. 
As this kind of work prevails, often to the exclusion or at least 
the fitful use of free reproduction and other non-translation 
kinds of exercises, it is well to point out some of the weaknesses 
of the practice, (i) Pupils are made to learn the foreign 
language by comparison before they have sufficient knowl- 
edge of its vocabulary and principles. (2) The composition 
books are far too ambitious in character. The acquisition 
of speed and accuracy should be regarded more highly -than 
the ability to translate difficult material inadequately. Writ- 
ten work of all kinds ought to consist largely of material that 
the pupil can readily do at sight. 

Reading. — Since reading is the chief aim of the modern 
language course, great care should be exercised not only in 
the selection, but also in the treatment of the material. It 
should be interesting, possess literary merit, and be well 
graded as to difficulty and the maturity of the pupils. At 
present, the general tendency is to read stories, and in the 
later years some poems and plays of classical writers. Unity 
and point of view are lacking in the course. It is organized 
only as to general amount and difficulty required for entrance 
to college. It would seem desirable to increase the kind of 
reading deahng with facts, particularly with those that give 



430 Principles of Secondary Education 

an insight into the hfe, customs, and history of the foreign 
peoples. In a four-year German course we might, for 
example, group the reading material around some definite 
points such as these : first year, a general introduction to 
German life ; second year, legends and sagas and the Mdrchen; 
third year, some few facts of history as illustrated by the lives 
of great personalities; fourth year, at least one hterary 
masterpiece and brief sketches of the lives of such men as 
Goethe, Lessing, and Schiller. 

The traditional treatment of reading is that of translation 
into the mother tongue. More recently systematic attempts 
have been made, notably in Germany, to reduce the amount 
of time spent upon this exercise and to increase the ability 
of the class to study and understand the foreign text without 
the aid of habitual translation. Clearness of understanding 
in the early stages is effected by selecting simple, objective 
material and teaching it by means of close questioning in the 
foreign tongue, explaining new words by the use of objects, pic- 
tures, or gesture, by opposites, by the study of word formation, 
by definition in the foreign language, or even by translating 
troublesome words and phrases. If the work is systematically 
done from the outset, translation may be limited largely to 
the more difiicult passages, and the time usually devoted to it 
be employed in various exercises carried on within the language 
being taught. How much shah be translated is a question, 
however, which individual teachers will always have to decide 
for themselves. Length of course and the equipment of the 
teacher are the controlling factors. It is obvious that trans- 
lation is the quickest apparent test of the pupil's understanding 
of a passage, although where it is used to the exclusion of 
all other exercises upon the text, some of its weaknesses may 
be summed up as follows. 

In general, translation is largely an exercise in the use of the 
mother tongue. As an exercise for teaching the foreign 
language, it is wasteful of time as a vocabulary builder. 



Modern Languages 431 

Since the pupil exchanges symbol for symbol, it neglects almost 
wholly the acquisition of the form side of the foreign language, 
and as usually carried on, it lays but little stress upon the 
thought side. It has Httle or no influence upon the growth 
of language sense {Sprachgefuhl). The foreign language is 
kept in the background, and is used as a mere vehicle for 
exercising the mother tongue. 

RESULTS OF SCHOOL WORK.— What, briefly, should 
be the outcome of a four-year high school course in modern 
languages ? The pupils should be able to read ordinary prose 
or poetry suitable in range of thought to their years of under- 
standing. By far the greater proportion of the materials 
should be selected from modern authors. While there can 
be no objection to the appreciative study by the pupils of one 
or two of the classic dramas or other forms of literature, the 
reading of the classics in general should be deferred to the 
college period of modern language instruction. By the selection 
of reading material and by all other means that the teacher can 
devise, the pupils should have been taught some elementary facts 
regarding the life and customs of the foreign peoples. They 
should have obtained by careful teaching an accurate working 
knowledge of the essentials of grammar in order that their 
growth in knowledge of the language shall always be upon 
a solid foundation. In addition, the pupils should have ac- 
quired the power to use a small stock of common words in 
speaking or in writing. They ought, for example, to be able 
to answer questions based upon an easy story read to them, 
or to give its contents in simple language either orally or in 
writing. Finally, they ought to have some facihty in con- 
versing about simple matters of daily life and be able to express 
their doings in letter form. 

PLACE OF MODERN LANGUAGES IN THE CURRICU- 
LUM. — The study of modern languages in the schools was 
largely developed during the nineteenth century. Before that 
period school instruction was not very widespread, nor were 



432 Principles of Secondary Education 

the foreign languages given anything but a very minor place 
in the school program. 

United States. In Colleges. — Until the Revolutionary 
war, American colleges, as a rule, followed about the same 
course of study as was found in the universities of the mother 
country. Latin and Greek, Hebrew, some logic and philos- 
ophy, rhetoric, elementary mathematics, and physics were 
regarded as ample. French is recorded as an extra study 
about the middle of the century at Harvard. The first 
professorship of French seems to have been established at 
the College of William and Mary in 1779, with the radical 
reorganization of the curriculum brought about by Thomas 
Jefferson. Students at Harvard, not preparing for the 
ministry, could substitute French for Hebrew in the 8o's of 
the eighteenth century. But for a good many years the 
advance made by French and, later, German, in the colleges 
was extremely slow. It was an extra subject, occupying an 
inferior position in the same list as music, fencing, etc., to be 
paid for extra, and not permitted to interfere with the stated 
academic duties. George Ticknor was made Professor of 
French, Spanish, and Belles Lettres at Harvard in 1816. 
With his name is closely associated the term " elective sys- 
tem," which much later came to play such a role in the or- 
ganization of the work of ail higher education in America. 
The modern languages acted as the first entering wedge in 
the attempt at breaking up the rigid curriculum of the past. 
In 1825 the University of Virginia opened its doors, and 
modern languages formed one of the ten schools comprised 
in the plan. In six months the modern language school was 
second in numbers after mathematics, and larger than the 
school of ancient languages. 

Very little progress in modern language studies was then 
made for over a generation until, in fact, the idea of elective 
studies again rapidly spread during the period of the presidency 
of Charles W. Eliot at Harvard. At present, the modern 



Modern Languages 433 

languages are among the largest departments in the Colleges 
of Arts. 

College Entrance Requirements. — If the development in 
the colleges was so slow, the condition in secondary schools 
is readily understood. It was not until 1875 that a modern 
language was required for admission to college. 

At the present time many colleges demand a reading knowl- 
edge of French or German, or both, for the several degrees, 
although there is nothing like uniformity except in colleges 
exclusively for women. As late as 1896-1897, of 432 institu- 
tions only 14 per cent required a modern language for the B.A. 
degree; of 123 institutions 4if per cent required a modern 
language for the Bachelor of Philosophy, the modern language 
being in lieu of Greek. Similar percentages are shown in the 
requirements for the degrees of B.S. and B.L. In the same 
year only 123 out of 318 colleges and scientific schools re- 
quired a modern language for admission. 

Reports on the Secondary Curriculum and Methods. — ■ 
The Report, published in 1899, of the Committee of Twelve, 
appointed by the Modern Language Association, has been 
of great assistance in fixing standards of modern language 
instruction in the schools. The method favored by the com- 
mittee was on the whole the so-called reading method ; that 
is, copious reading of graded texts, hand in hand with the study 
of grammatical essentials. But the committee also advised, 
particularly in the longer courses, the introduction of some 
oral work, and other practices of the German direct method. 
Three grades of attainments were defined in the Report, and 
reading texts for each suggested. The elementary grade, 
reached normally after two years of study, represents the 
minimum requirement now usually set for entrance to col- 
lege. The work of the two higher grades, the intermediate 
and the advanced, is intended to take one and two years' 
longer study than the elementary. The Committee's Report 
was early adopted by the College Entrance Examination 



434 Principles of Secondary Edttcation 

Board and the combined influence has done much to bring 
about unity in admission requirements. The aim of instruc- 
tion and the work to be done in the various grades is about 
as follows : 

For the elementary course. Ability to translate at sight 
very easy dia,logue or narrative prose, to put into the foreign 
language short English sentences taken from the language of 
everyday life or based upon a text given for translation, and 
to answer questions upon the rudiments of grammar. The 
committee suggested that the amount of reading to be done 
should, in French, consist of 350 to 375 pages; in German, of 
225 to 250 pages. In addition to careful drill upon pronuncia- 
tion, abundant easy exercises of various kinds should serve 
to fix the essentials of grammar and to cultivate readiness in 
the reproduction of natural forms of expression. 

For the intermediate course. Ability to read at sight prose 
of ordinary difficulty, to put into the foreign language a con- 
nected passage of simple English based upon the text read, 
and to answer more difficult grammatical questions. The 
work to be done in reading should consist of about 400 to 
600 pages of French, or 400 pages of German, with constant 
practice in giving paraphrases of portions of the matter read, 
together with more extended study of the grammar of the 
foreign language. 

For the advanced course. Ability to read at sight difficult 
French not earlier than that of the seventeenth century, or 
any German literature of the past 150 years that is free from 
textual difficulties, to put into the foreign language a passage 
of simple English prose, to answer German questions relating 
to the lives and works of the great writers studied; in French, 
to carry on a simple conversation. The work of the last 
year should consist of about 600-1000 pages of standard French 
or of about 500 pages of German literature respectively. 
Pupils should also write numerous short themes as well as 
translations of EngHsh into the foreign language. 



Modern Languages 435 

While the Report of the Committee of Twelve remains 
even to-day an excellent statement, on the whole, of the aims 
and methods of foreign language study, the experience of the 
past years warrants a restatement in regard to some partic- 
ulars. Higher standards of thoroughness, greater intensity 
and variety in the treatment of the material make it impossible 
to cover satisfactorily the number of pages indicated in the 
report. This is particularly true with regard to the inter- 
mediate and advanced grades. The reading lists also re- 
quire adjustment and more careful standardization for the 
various grades. The rate of advance in difficulty from the 
elementary to the intermediate, and, again, from the latter to 
the advanced, is, undoubtedly, too great, and out of harmony 
with school conditions. Lastly, the importance of oral and 
aural training, of the freer use of the foreign language in 
general, would now be more greatly accentuated. 

Within the past few years, the more progressive teachers, 
stimulated by the results obtained by the reformers in Ger- 
many, have been trying to adapt to local conditions some of 
the aims and methods employed abroad. More attention 
has been given to oral work, and to teaching pupils freer and 
better control of the language in general. The greatest ob- 
stacle to rapid progress, however, is bad teaching, for outside 
the large city systems there are far too few special teachers 
possessing adequate knowledge of the subject, and specially 
trained in methods of presentation. 

Distribution of Pupils. — The geographical distribution of 
pupils studying French and German in secondary schools 
shows remarkable variations. In general, the North Atlantic 
Division leads in the percentage of pupils studying both 
French and German in 1909-1910, with 27.56 per cent as 
against 1 1 . 50 per cent for the rest of the United States. Again, 
the New England states lead in the percentage of those pur- 
suing French, with 41.21 per cent as against 6.44 per cent 
for the rest of the United States. On the other hand, the 



436 Principles of Secondary Education 

same states are below the average for the United States in 
the percentage of pupils studying German, 17.21 per cent as 
against 23.69 per cent for the country as a whole. As an 
example, also, of the great variation in the study of the two 
languages in different states, 49.09 per cent of pupils in the 
New Hampshiire secondary schools study French as against 
0.69 per cent in Indiana. New Jersey leads in percentage of 
pupils pursuing German, with 41.39 per cent, while the per- 
centages for South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi are 
0.34 per cent, 0.72 per cent, and 1.69 per cent respectively. 

Germany. — Although Germany was much in advance of 
other countries, the introduction of French into the schools 
did not begin to make any headway until the eighteenth century. 
Before that time its study was confined to private instruction or 
to the schools attended by the upper classes {Riiterakademien) . 
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, most 
Prussian Gymnasien offered French as an optional subject. 
Owing to patriotic reasons, it was banished from the schools 
in 18 16, to be taken up more vigorously a few years later. 
In 1 83 1 French became obligatory in Prussia, beginning in 
Tertia. Other states followed later. Saxony in 1846, Bavaria 
in 1854. The study of English was much slower in its develop- 
ment. The relations between the countries were in earher 
times not strong, but were kept alive by trade, traveling, and, 
notably, beginniijg with the middle of the eighteenth century, 
by the increased interest in English literature. It was, 
however, not until as late as 1859 that EngKsh was made 
obligatory in the Realschulen of Prussia, although of course 
it had been gradually introduced in the schools during the 
first half of the century. Since the refounding of the Ger- 
man Empire, and particularly during the last two decades, 
the study of English has made rapid advances. In 1900 an 
imperial edict allowed the substitution of English for French 
in the three upper classes of the gymnasium (Oil, UI, and 
01), French remaining an optional subject. It also made 



Modern Languages 437 

possible the substitution of other subjects for Greek in 
Untertertia, Obertertia, and Untersekunda, in which case 
three of the six hours are given to Enghsh, and the other 
three are distributed among French and mathematics and 
the sciences. 

Method. — ■ The method of modern language instruction in 
Germany has, from early times, swung between two poles, — 
the synthetic and the analytic. Both types of instruction 
have existed at all times side by side, although, during the 
first half of the nineteenth century, the method employed 
in the schools was on the whole synthetic and a close imitation 
of the severely grammatical procedure employed in the teach- 
ing of Latin and Greek. This was due in part to a great lack 
of properly trained teachers, for the universities were late in 
estabhshing chairs of French and EngUsh, the majority com- 
ing after 1850. The new facilities for study produced in 
time an organized and well-schooled body of modern language 
teachers. Particularly during the last generation have great 
changes been made, bringing progress toward better ways and 
means of teaching the subject, so that at the present time no 
other country equals Germany in the excellence of its modern 
language instruction. The method now widely employed, often 
called the direct method, is analytic in character, and is a 
revolt against the older formal grammatical procedure. The 
chief points are as follows : Reading occupies a central posi- 
tion in the work in place of grammar, and is selected so as to 
give pupils a clear idea of the Hfe, thought, and civilization of 
the foreign people. In all stages, but particularly in the 
earher, great emphasis is laid upon oral practice. Indeed, 
the emphasis upon the spoken language and upon written 
exercises growing out of the oral work is a sahent characteristic 
of the method. Translations from and into the vernacular 
cease to be any longer a regular exercise. Grammar study is 
reduced to essentials, and taught largely inductively. This, 
in general, represents the plan of the more radical reformers. 



438 



Principles of Secondary Education 



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Modern Languages 439 

The more conservative, forming probably the majority, still 
favor the retention of translation, and greater emphasis upon 
the grammatical course. 

The work, particularly of the more advanced reformers, 
has been the subject of much criticism, especially in the last 
decade, partly because of its too utilitarian tendencies, and 
partly because of the general instability of pupils' knowledge, 
mainly on the formal side. The movement, however, rep- 
resents a great step forward in both aim and practice. Mod- 
ern language method has never before been so efficiently and 
rationally organized with the idea of giving power to the 
pupil to use the foreign language in reading, in writing, and 
in speaking. 

France. — German and English are the modern languages 
most studied in the French public schools, instruction in 
Spanish and Italian being confined almost exclusively to 
places near the borders of the respective countries. Of the 
two languages German is chosen more frequently in the boys' 
schools. This is partly due to the fact that it is required for 
entrance to the military school at Saint-Cyr and the Ecole 
Poly technique. English is more favored in the girls' schools. 

Instruction in the modern languages was made optional in 
lycees and colleges in 1821, though but little weight was at- 
tached to their study, and but meager time allowed. In 
1838 the study became compulsory in the classical course, 
and in 1847 i^ the " modern " course. In 1880 modern lan- 
guages were studied in every class, with a total of twenty- 
nine hours per week. The kind of instruction, and the results 
obtained, were, however, unsatisfactory. Translation from 
and into the foreign tongue, and much formal grammar were 
the chief means employed almost everywhere, even as late as 
1896, although the ministerial instructions of 1890 were in 
theory in advance of any of the German official regulations 
of about the same time. The provinces in particular were 
very backward. The reform, which had already been in 



440 Principles of Secondary Education 

progress a dozen years or more in Germany, had as yet made 
scarcely any impression upon the work in France. In 1902, 
however, the whole subject of modern language instruction 
was radically changed. The aims and practices of the ad- 
vanced German reformers were taken over, stock and barrel, 
and formulated in the instructions of the 15th November, 1901, 
Since that time most earnest attempts have been made by 
the government and the teachers to carry out the new radical 
program, and apparently with considerable success. 

After six years' trial it was found necessary to be more 
conservative in the work, particularly in the upper classes. 
The new instructions of 1908 confirm and strengthen the plan 
of work done in the lower classes. For the fifth and fourth 
classes translation into the mother tongue, not mentioned in 
the earlier instructions, is suggested as a means of control in 
addition to the study of the reading text by exercises in the 
foreign language. The chief changes, however, are made in 
the instructions dealing with the' work of the second and first 
classes. The earlier program emphasized reading material 
dealing with the life, civilization, and history of the literature 
of the foreign people ; the new lays stress entirely upon litera- 
ture, pure and simple. Moreover, one of the chief exercises 
of the last period is the cultivation of the art of translation 
into the mother tongue. These changes, however, are very 
slight on the whole. France leads the world, officially, in 
the advocacy of the radical direct method of modern language 
teaching. 

Modern languages may now be studied for eleven of the 
twelve years in the French lycees and colleges for boys. In 
the second year of the preparatory division and in the eighth 
and seventh forms of the elementary division the subject is 
very inadequately represented by two hours for each. At- 
tempts to eliminate the study and to defer the regular instruc- 
tion until the sixth form have thus far failed. In the follow- 
ing four forms, constituting the first cycle, one modern Ian- 



Modern Languages 



441 



guage is studied five hours per week in each of the four years. 
In the first two forms of the second cycle the number of hours 
devoted to modern languages depends upon which of the four 
possible groups of courses or sections the pupil elects to pur- 
sue. The following is a table for these two years : 





Section A 


S:ection B 


Section C 


Section D • 


Modern 
Language 


Latin and Greek 
2 


Latin and Modern 
Language 

3 


Latin and Science 
2 


Science and 
Modern Language 

3 
4^ 



In the highest form there is a twofold division into the 
philosophy and mathematics forms, each with two sections, 
A and B. 





Philosophy 


Mathematics 




Section A 


Section B 


Section A 


Section B 


Modern 
Languages 


22 


{^ 


2 


{^ 



The modern language course in girls' secondary schools is 
begun in the infant class and continued as an obligatory study 
throughout all the nine years. In the last two years a second 
modern language may be taken. The following is the number 
of hours per week in each of the classes: 2^, 2|, 2^, 2^, 3, 

3,3,3, (2),' 3 (2).' 

The following is the number of hours given to modern 
languages in the usual three classes of the French higher 

1 Second language begun and continued. ^ Optional. 

' Pupils have the right as to distribution of these hours. 
* Second language optional. 



442 Principles of Secondary Education 

elementary schools, the ecoles primaires superieures and ecoles 
pratiques de commerce et cf Industrie. 



Boys' Schools 


I 


II 


III 


General Course 1 . 7 u- ■ 
„ . ■. ^ \ ecole supeneure 
Commercial Course J 

Commercial Course {ecole pratique) 
Girls' Schools 

General Course {ecole super ieure) 
Commercial Course {ecole pratique) 


3 
6 

3 
4l 


3 
4 
6 

3 
44 


2 

4 
6 

3 
4h 



England. — The status of modern foreign languages in 
English schools of secondary grade is still in the making. 
Among the factors that have retarded their growth are : — 
(i) Lack of any national system of public instruction before 
1902 ; (2) The influence of the older universities and public 
schools — strong bulwarks of classical training ; (3) Until 
a few years ago, the overemphasis of science and art subjects 
in non-endowed schools, in order to obtain state grants of 
money, and the consequent neglect of the humanities ; (4) The 
attitude of the Board of Education towards modern languages, 
its insistence upon Latin as one of the two foreign languages 
taught in every school. In the most recent circular, however, 
it has taken a more liberal attitude and has yielded so far as 
to say that provision for the study of Latin need not be made 
in every school, but only in one out of every group of schools. 
The present ratio of pupils taking French to those taking 
German is about five to one. Since it is usually possible for 
pupils to take only two foreign languages of which Latin either 
must be, or almost invariably is, one, German goes to the 
wall. Indeed many feel it is in a state of serious decline. 

According to the Report on the conditions of modern lan- 
guage teaching presented in 1908 at the.meeting of the Modern 
Language Association, the average age of pupils beginning 



Modern Languages 443 

French was 11 ; of 98 schools of the local type reporting, 74 
began French first, 4 schools Latin, and 20 began the two 
languages simultaneously. German, if studied at all, is 
taken up at 14. This gives little time to the study of this 
language where the leaving age is 16 or 17. Four or five 45- 
minute lessons a week are quite usual for the foreign language. 
The teaching has shown great improvement in recent 
years. In the past, particularly in the public schools and 
the numerous private schools, the scanty instruction was in 
the hands of a foreigner who was, far too often, treated as an 
outsider in the social scheme. To-day there are an increasing 
number of men and women — trained at the universities or 
by study abroad — who have done much to put modern lan- 
guage work in a better strategic position. Within the past ten 
years or so, the principles of the German reform method have 
found many advocates. The Modern Language Association 
with its excellent organ, Modern Language Teachings has been 
a powerful instrument in arousing apathetic official boards 
and in creating public interest in the cause, and, particularly, 
in threshing out and adapting the so-called " direct method " 
to English conditions. Judging from the report of the com- 
mittee referred to above, reform teaching has already made 
considerable headway, especially in the elementary stages of 
instruction. The various university and other examining 
bodies that play such a role in English education have also 
begun to set papers more in keeping with modern aims of 
foreign language teaching. 



TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

The range of active vocabulary in the modern language course. 

The use of illustrative material. 

The use of the talking machine. 

The organization of reviews. 

The applications of the Gouin method. 

The relation between class and home work. 

The study of typical errors of pupils. 



444 Principles of Secondary Education 

8. Prescribed reading for entrance to college. 

9. Examination papers as a tes of power and of knowledge. 

10. The organization of drill exercises. 

11. The use of the mother tongue in foreign language instruction. 

12. The teaching of grammar in the foreign language. 

13. The relation between speaking and reading in the higher stages 
of the course. 

14. The aim and organization of written work in the higher stages. 

15. The acquisition of the foreign language vocabulary. 

P.EFERENCES 

Bagster-Collins, E. W. The Teaching of German in Secondary Schools. 

New York, 1904. 
Bahlsen, L. The Teaching of Modern Languages. Boston, 1905. 
Baumann, F. Reform und Antireform im neusprachlichen Unterricht. 

Berlin, 1902. 
Breul, K. The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages. London, 

1908. 
BiJTTNER, H. Die Muttersprache im neusprachlichen Unterricht. Mar- 
burg, 1910. 
Eggert, B. Der psychologische Zusammenhang in der Didaktik des 

neusprachlichen Reformunterrichts. Berlin, 1904. 
England, Board of Education. Special Reports on Educational Subjects, 

Vol. II (1898), pp. 648-679; Teaching of Modern Languages in 

Belgium and Holland, Vol. Ill (1898), pp. 461-533; Teaching of 

Modern Languages in Germany (several articles). 
Flagstad, Chr. B. Psychologic der Sprachpddagogik. Leipzig, 1913. 
Handschin, C. H. The Teaching of Modern Languages in the United 

States. Washington, 1913. 
HovELAQUE, E. Deux Conferences sur I'Enseignement des Langues 

Vivantes. Paris, 1910. 
Jespersen, p. How to Teach a Foreign Language. New York, 1904. 
Munch, W. Didaktik und Methodik des franzosischen Unterrichts. 

Miinchen, 19 10. 
QuiEHL, K. Franzosische Aussprache und Sprachfertigkeit. Marburg, 

1906. 
Report of Committee on Modern Languages. Washington, 1899, also 

Boston. 
Walter, M. Englisch nach deni Frankfurter Reformplan. Marburg, 

1910. 
Zur Methodik des neusprachlichen Unterrichts. Marburg, 1908. 



Modern Languages 445 

WoHLFEiL, P. Der Kampf um die neusprachlichc Unterrichtsmethode. 

Frankfurt, 1901. 
WoLFROMM, A. La Question des Methodes. Revue de V Enseignement 

des Langues vivantes. Paris 1902-1905. 

Periodicals : — 
Die Neueren Sprachen. Marburg. 
Modern Language Notes. Baltimore. 
Modern Language Teaching. London. 

Monatshefte filr deutsche Sprache und Pddagogik. Milwaukee. 
Revue de l' Enseignement des Langues vivantes. Paris. 
Zeitschrijt fiir franzosischen und englischen Unterricht. Berlin. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE NATURAL SCIENCES 

EDUCATIONAL FUNCTIONS AND VALUES OF THE 

SCIENCES 

WHAT SCIENTIFIC STUDY SHOULD DO FOR THE 
PUPILS. — Educational values of great importance may be 
derived from the study of science, if it be taught in accordance 
with the scientific method and from the broad, humanistic 
viewpoint. The extent to which these values are likely to 
be realized will depend on the natural tastes and aptitudes 
of the pupils, their previous and their present environment, 
their present powers and abilities, and the degree of perfection 
attained in the methods by which they are taught. Cer- 
tainly these values are more likely to be realized in the pupils 
if the teacher understands them. They are therefore here 
enumerated and will be briefly discussed.^ 

1. The formation of some useful specific habits, — through 
training, routine, rationalized practice. 

2 . The acquisition of useful information, — through me- 
thodical study, instruction, and drill. 

3. The adoption of valuable ideals, or "emotionalized 
standards," — inculcated through the inspiration to be gained 
from the teacher, from the lives of great scientists, and from 
experiences of intimate contact with nature. 

4. The acquisition of facility in the use of facts, ideas, and 
methodical thought processes, for the solution of problems,^ 

1 Cf. Bagley, W. C, Educational Values. New York, 1911, Chap. VII. 

2 In this chapter the word problem is to be taken in its broadest sense, mean- 
ing any situation involving doubt, in which thinking is required in order to 
reach a solution. Cf. Dewey, John, How We Think. Heath & Co. Boston, 
1910, p. 9. 

446 



The Natural Sciences 447 

the overcoming of difficulties, and the accomplishment of 
worthy purposes, — through the mental discipline afforded by 
properly graded practice in the solving of scientific problems. 

5. The development of taste, and power of appreciation, — • 
to be gained through a clear apprehension of unity, adaptation, 
economy, order, and system in nature as interpreted by science. 

6. The development of scientific or philosophic insights, 
perspectives, and attitudes of mind that serve as safeguards 
to the intelligent interpretation of contemporary life, — 
through acquaintance with systems of organized knowledge. 

Thus science teaching has a training function in the for- 
mation of right habits, an instructional function in the stor- 
ing up of useful information, an inspirational function aiming 
at the inculcation of worthy ideals, a disciplinary function, 
resulting in the development of mental power, a recreative 
function, tending toward the development of refined tastes 
and powers of appreciation, and an interpretive function, 
aiming at scientific insight, and such broad mental perspectives 
as are characteristic of a cultivated, well-balanced mind. 

The general aim of education from the modern standpoint 
is the development, in each individual, of the highest type of 
personality, combined with economic and social efficiency. 
This aim takes account of individual differences and environ- 
mental differences. Its motto is " The socially efficient 
individual." 

On this basis the hope for outcome of the training function 
is the realization of utilitarian, economic, or vocational values, 
— " bread-and-butter values," so to speak — which contribute 
to the abihty of the individual to support himself and a family. 
In the more narrowly vocational studies and trade studies, 
the aim is toward direct utilitarian value, — the specific kinds 
of motor skill needed in particular occupations, such as car- 
pentry, electrical construction, plumbing, cooking, and the 
like ; but the habits formed in science study are more indirect, 
more varied, and therefore of more general application. If 
the usefulness of these habits in life situations outside the 



'44^ Principles of Secondary Education 

school are clearly shown, so that the pupils realize their value 
as permanent acquisitions that will help them in their every- 
day lives in definitely apprehended ways, the pupils may 
form ideals of carrying these habits over into their everyday 
lives. Experiments have shown that, without such conscious 
ideals, such habits are not at all likely to be carried over in 
large measure.^ 

The instructional function tends toward utilitarian value, 
and also toward preparatory value. Much of the information 
gained in the study of physics, chemistry, botany, geology, 
and zoology is necessary in preparing for the higher studies 
needed in the professions of applied science, such as engineer- 
ing, scientific agriculture, teaching, and medicine. 

Both the training and the instructional function result 
incidentally in a certain amount of conventional value. 
Through these functions the pupil may acquire some of the 
habits, manners, and general information which constitute 
that minimum of conventional culture, without which society 
will refuse to accord him respect, and the lack of which would 
stamp him as a boor, an ignoramus, and make it less easy for 
him to get on harmoniously with his fellows. 

The remaining functions contribute to socializing value, 
because they enable the individual who has profited by them 
to contribute to social progress. They fit him to be a " soldier 
of the common good," to help in increasing the achievement of 
each for all and all for each, through the improvement of the 
environment of all and the personal worth of each. 

Specific Habits. — The following are some of the specific 
habits which pupils will tend to acquire through the study of 
any of the sciences under the direction of a good teacher. 
Since they are of kinds that will be useful in very many of 

1 Cf. Rowe, S. H., Uahil Formation and the Science of Teaching. Longmans, 
Green & Co., New York, 1910, Chap. XII, especially pp. 243 ff. ; Colvin, S. S., 
The Learning Process. Macmillan, New York, 1911, pp. 220 ff. ; and Thorndike, 
E. L., The Psychology of Learning. Teachers College, Columbia University, 
New York, 1913, pp. 415 ff. 



The Nahiral Sciences 449 

the situations of everyday life and in all kinds of occupations, 
they are of great general utility, and are important to every 
individual. While the time and attention given them should 
not be allowed to become disproportionately great, no teacher 
should allow himself wholly to neglect them. 

1. Careful observation of significant facts and phenomena, 
using hands, eyes, and ears before consulting books. 

2. System, order, and neatness in the arrangement of 
apparatus and appliances for observational and experimental 
work. 

3. Carefulness and skill in the manipulation of tools and 
appliances. 

4. Careful measurements, according to correct methods. • 

5. Accuracy and methodical procedure in setting down, 
arranging, and tabulating data, and in making calculations. 

6. Legible writing, clear, neat and accurate drawing, cor- 
rect spelling and punctuation, correct grammatical construc- 
tion, clearness and conciseness in written and spoken English. 

7. Good form and effective motor attitudes and expression 
in "making a recitation." 

In the routine of studying a science in school all the various 
kinds of acts impHed by the list just enumerated will be per- 
formed, either in the right ways or in wrong ways. When- 
ever an act or a thought occurs in response to a question, 
direction, suggestion, or act of the teacher, and it results in 
satisfaction, it is hkely to be repeated under the same stimulus 
or a similar one. Every repetition of such a motor reaction or 
mental connection tends to make it recur automatically. 
Hence, habits of some sort will inevitably be formed. Whether 
they are to be right habits or wrong habits will depend on the 
way in which the teacher conducts the work. 

The Law of Habit Formation. — This is a special case of 
the more general law of mental connections or association, and 
is stated by Thorndike ^ as follows : " The likeKhood that 

1 Thorndike, E. L., Elements of Psychology. A. G. Seiler, New York, 1905, 
p. 207. 

2 G 



450 Principles of Secondary Education 

any mental state or act will occur in response to any situation 
is in proportion to the frequency, recency, intensity, and re- 
sultant satisfaction of its connection with that situation or 
some part of it, and with the total frame of mind in which the 
situation is felt.'"' 

Application oj the Law of Association in Teaching. — Hence 
the teacher should see to it, when any of the things above 
referred to are done, that (i) the pupils clearly understand what 
is the best way and why it is best, (2) that he arouses in them 
such ideals of good form, efhciency, and professional pride, and 
gets them into such a total frame of mind that they shall be 
anxious to do it in the best way, (3) that in the inevitable repeti- 
tions of the act they are not allowed to lapse into wrong ways, 
but are made to do it in the right way every time, and (4) that 
satisfaction shall always be connected with the right way and 
dissatisfaction with the wrong way until the right way becomes 
automatic. 

Scientific Information. — The content of the sciences is made 
up of facts, phenomena and processes, laws and principles, 
hypotheses and theories, and fundamental generalizations, 
arranged and classified in accordance with their relations to 
one another, — particular under general, and these in turn under 
more general. The relations in accordance with which they 
are classified have to do with time, space, quahty, — especially 
with reference to function, or use, quantity, and cause, origin, 
or development.^ 

The Choice of Subject Matter. — There are three conditions 
under which any part of the content or subiect matter of a school 
study may be made permanently useful. 

1 Economy of space forbids elaboration of this topic. To the reader who has 
pursued extended courses in one or more of the sciences its meaning will prob- 
ably be clear, as the classification and arrangement of the content of most 
science textbooks are made from the logical rather than the psychological point 
of view. No better illustrative examples of the kinds of content and modes of 
organization of scientific subject matter for the purposes of the mature scholar 
can be found than the article on " Science," and the articles on the special sciences 
in the Encyclopcedia Britannica. 



The Natural Sciences 451 

1. It must be capable of being made simple enough to be 
clearly comprehended by the pupil ; 

2. It must be knowledge that will help in the accomplish- 
ment of some worthy purpose ; 

3. It must be frequently associated with the situations in 
which it is likely to be needed, or some part of them, or some- 
thing Uke them, so that it can be recalled when the need for it 
occurs. 

Were these three conditions always appHed as criteria in the 
selection and teaching of the subject matter, much uninteresting 
and worthless lumber that is handed down from textbooks of 
an earlier day would be discarded from our lessons. Actual 
utility of this sort ought to be the sole test for the choice of sub- 
ject matter, since there are such vast stores to choose from that 
no one can possibly learn it all, even should he so desire. To 
defend subject matter that cannot stand these tests by claiming 
that it is a means of mental discipline — of gaining power — is to 
ignore the findings of modern psychology. So far as mental 
power is dependent on information, it consists precisely in having 
at command, for immediate recall and use, information that will 
help to solve the various problems of everyday life, intellectual 
and social as well as physical, and especially such problems as 
have elements of more than ordinary novelty and difhculty in 
them. To claim that mental power results from the mere ac- 
quiring of information that cannot be so used is a direct con- 
tradiction of terms. On the other hand, even though the learn- 
ing of contentless material were granted disciplinary value, 
there is a superabundance of useful material out of which just 
as good discipline can be got, provided the methods by which 
it is imparted are right. 

Criteria for the Choice of Subject Matter. — In making choice 
of content we should select that which is comprehensible, and 
which has the greatest number of useful elements in common 
with the present everyday-life situations, interests, and knowl- 
edge of the pupils, and with the everyday-life situations in which 



452 Principles of Secondary Education 

they may reasonably be expected to take part when they be- 
come adults. Since the law of efficient recall is identical with 
the law of habit formation, we should connect this content with 
as many as possible of these situations, and do it as frequently, 
as vividly, and as interestingly as possible.^ It is thus only that 
we can make sure that the knowledge gained shall be of useful 
sort, and that it shaU be usable. 

The Mastery of Content. — Much of the content of the sciences 
is familiar to the active and enterprising boy or girl, but Ms 
concepts, gained empirically through untrained experience, are 
vague. The meanings grouped in them are disconnected and 
unsystematized. Such vague, indefinite products of experience 
are called psychological concepts. The teacher's problem is to 
start with what the pupil knows about a fact or law, — with his 
psychological concept, — and help him to work out his ideas, 
to make them clear and expUcit, to apprehend their relations, 
and to classify and arrange them accordingly. He must be 
supplied with new meanings from various sources, and in various 
ways, so that the content of his concepts may be enlarged. He 
must be taught to define his concepts, and connect them in 
memory with the names, sjmibols, formulae, definitions, or 
statements that are to stand for them. By such a process his 
vague psychological concept of tree, or mountain, or plain, or 
the law of the lever, or of the process of stream erosion becomes 
an exphcit, organized, logical concept, and is connected in 
memory with a word or definition which serves to recall any or 
all of the many clear and useful meanings that are now grouped 
in systematic order under it.^ 

The learning of facts and laws, the building up of concepts, 
the mastery of principles, are best carried on in connection with 
problems to the solution of which the knowledge is necessary or 
significant. The memory connections and associations thus 

^ See pp. 449 and 450 ante. 

2 See Miller, The Psychology of Thinking. Macmillan, New York, 1910, 
Chaps. XV and XVI. 



The Natural Sciences 453 

made will be stronger just because of this necessity or signifi- 
cance ; for if there is a strong desire or incentive toward reach- 
ing the solution, the information will be sought earnestly, it 
will be connected vividly with the other elements of the problem, 
and the connection wiU result in satisfaction if the knowledge 
proves to be helpful. Furthermore, frequency is secured by the 
repeated use of the fact or principle in different problems. 

If an important principle is not successfully memorized in 
this way as an incident in problem solving, its utiHty may at 
least be made so apparent that the students will cheerfully sub- 
mit to whatever formal drill may be necessary in order dehber- 
ately to memorize it for further use. 

It thus appears that separate lessons will not often be neces- 
sary for the mastering of content and the mastering of method, 
but that the former is best acquired through the problem lesson, 
wherein lies the only road to a real hold on the latter. 

Inspiration and Scientific Ideals. — Ideals constitute the 
motive power for human endeavor. This is true for the adoles- 
cent no less than for the adult. Adolescence is the very time 
when the tendency toward idealizing is strongest. What the 
youths or maidens choose to do, how they regulate their conduct, 
depends, so far as their personal initiative is concerned, on what 
they think worth while. Hence, the importance of recognizing 
the values of scientific ideals and of making every effort to 
realize them in the teaching process can hardly be overstated. 

Scientific study if carried on in the true scientific spirit com- 
pels sincerity, out-and-out intellectual integrity, uncompromising 
honesty, at every step: " What are the actual facts ? " " What 
is the truth about them ? " These are the sole ultimate questions 
of scientific study. To know the truth and put it into usable 
form, is the only aim. Since honesty is of the very essence of 
scientific study, the student of science under good scientific 
instruction is trained day by day to habits of honesty, to the 
habit of seeking the truth, and he may therefore come to realize 
the general value in individual and social life, of sincerity, 



454 Principles of Secondary Education 

honesty, and love for knowledge of reality for its own sake. 
He may without special direction analyze out and generalize 
these ideals from the daily practice of these virtues in class- 
room and laboratory. Now although it is fair to count on some- 
thing in the way of their unconscious acquisition, yet great op- 
portunities for immediate motivation and the determination of 
future character will be lost, unless the teacher constantly holds 
up the worthy ideals before the pupils, and occasionally points 
out their utihty, both for accompHshing the scientific work im- 
mediately in hand, and for regulating the conduct of a successful 
life. In doing this the situations chosen as examples of such 
utility should always be specific and concrete, not general or 
abstract. Referring again to the law of mental connections, 
the teacher should understand that the only way to make sure 
that the ideal of honesty in the schoolroom be recalled and used 
in the various situations outside is to have the pupils associate 
it with a great variety of these situations with " frequency, 
vividness, and resultant satisfaction," and then to generalize it. 

Prudish and abstract sermonizing is harmful. It defeats its 
own end ; but if the teacher loves the ideal and lives it himself, he 
will find multitudes of tactful ways, in addition to the powerful 
way of example, for quietly influencing his pupils to adopt it 
deliberately as a rule of fife. 

. Other important ideals that may be expected to accrue from 
the study of science by the scientific method are : (i) achieve^ 
ment, (2) industry, (3) " stick- to-itiveness," concentration of 
attention on the thing in hand, (4.) efficiency, or accuracy com- 
bined with speed, (5) resourcefulness, (6) open-mindedness, 
(7) a logical, well-balanced mind, (8) hatred of narrowness and 
prejudice, (9) social service, and (10) the ability to present ideas 
clearly and convincingly. 

Mental Discipline.^ — Notwithstanding the specific character 
of habits and intellectual functions, the possibility of the transfer 
or spread of training into fields other than those in which it is 
1 Cf. Whipple, G. M,, p. 300 ante. 



The N^atural Sciences 455 

acquired is admitted by most modern psychologists ; but it is 
certain that the extent to which such transfer may spread de- 
pends very largely on the kind of content with which the training 
deals, and the way in which it is taught. Our present task is to 
find a principle that will help the teacher of science to convert 
this possibility into fact. 

The so-called generalized habits, such as concentration of 
attention, methodical procedure, accuracy, open-mindedness, 
etc., are specific habits that can be used in a large number of 
different situations having elements of Hkeness to the situations 
involved in the training in which these habits have been gained, 
and requiring responses of a more or less similar kind. 

Kjiowledge of many facts of physics, chemistry, geography, 
botany, etc., enables one to get on better in a great variety of 
activities in which knowledge that is identical with it, or like 
it, in whole or in part, is needed as a basis for ideas in the solu- 
tion of difficulties, and the performance of tasks. It has been 
shown elsewhere ^ that the method by which the scientific worker 
controls his thinking and carries on his researches is only a re- 
finement and perfection, through scientific training, of the 
methods of thinking that are used by everybody who thinks 
effectively. Thus it is evident that scientific training has ele- 
ments of method that are common to all problematic situations 
in every field of activity. 

Applying the Principles of Transfer. — Hence, in order to get 
general discipline out of any particular study, the content 
selected for teaching must be that which has the greatest number 
of such common elements, and these must be mentally associated 
with as many as may be of such activities, as frequently, \dvidly, 
and interestingly as possible. 

Also whenever the methods used in the study are applied in 
whole or in part, with or without modification, to the solution 
of important problems or the performance of work important 

1 Cf. Dewey, op. cit., Chap. VI, and Twiss, G. R., The Principles of Science 
Teaching. Macmillan, New York (in preparation). Chap. IV. 



456 Principles of Secondary Education 

to the present or future Kfe of the boys and girls, the teacher 
should make the pupils think how such methods apply, and 
what modifications, if any, must be made of them in order that 
they may be most efficiently used. 

In connection with forming habits of connecting school 
knowledge with Kfe problems, the advantage of habitually ac- 
quiring such knowledge and of using it for accompKshing worthy 
things must be shown, so that an ideal of so acquiring and using 
concepts and principles may be built up and emotionalized. 

How Concepts oj Method are Built Up. — The most important 
phase of teaching with respect to mental discipline is the for- 
mation of concepts of method. These are built up just as other 
concepts are. Through the experience gained in solving a large 
number of practical problems, the student becomes acquainted 
with certain modes of attack, methods of orderly procedure, 
ways of classifying data, and points of view in interpreting data, 
all of which are commonly found to be advantageous in handling 
such problems. He forms habits of analyzing problematic 
situations to find out the features of them that are essential or 
significant to their solutions. He acquires habits of forming 
hypotheses, reasoning out their impKcations, and testing these 
impKcations one by one by comparison with the actual facts 
through systematic observation or definitely planned experi- 
ments. He learns processes of weighing, measuring, testing, 
separating, of eliminating irrelevant circumstances, materials, or 
forces, of restricting inferences to what logically follows from 
known facts, of making card catalogues, looking up bibhogra- 
phies, and the like. Through his experience with these methods 
and through appreciation of the value of methodical habits and 
definitely planned procedures, he gradually gets the idea thg-t 
there is some kind of methodical procedure that is best for 
any given thing that has to be done, or any given kind of prob- 
lem that has to be solved. Sooner or later he begins to observe, 
classify, and organize the methods which he has used, to find out 
in what kinds or classes of problems each one of these methods 



The Nattiral Sciences 457 

is appKcable. Thus he accumulates facts about methods, grasps 
the meanings of methods in their relation to various kinds of 
problematic situations, and learns what kinds of procedure are 
apphcable in various kinds of problems. Bit by bit he adds 
these to his notion of what methodical procedure is, what it is 
good for, and how a well-known method of procedure must be 
modified in its details to fit new situations that are like old ones 
in general but different in some of their details. The extent 
to which his psychological concept of methodical procedure 
will be converted into a well-ordered and usable logical concept 
will depend very largely on the methods by wliich he is trained, 
and these in turn will depend on how broad and thorough is the 
teacher's concept of method, and how fertile he is in assisting 
the students to notice and classify methods as they go along, 
and how careful he is to have them notice situations, outside 
the schoolroom, to wliich these methods may be fitted either 
with or without modification.^ 

Precepts for the Conduct of Transferable Training. — From 
the principles just stated we may derive some rules of procedure 
for the science teacher who wishes so to shape his methods of 
teaching that his pupils may get transferable discipline out of 
their study under his direction. 

1 . It is impossible to teach the whole of any science ; there- 
fore a most careful selection of subject matter and method must 
be made. 

2. In making the selection the choice should fall on such 
elements of content and such elements of method as are useful 
in many situations of present-day life, and especially of the 
sorts of life that the pupils who are being taught are likely to 
live, now or later on. 

■ 3. The pupils should be caused to make association connec- 
tions between these elements of content and method, as de- 
veloped in classroom and laboratory, and the situations of life 

1 Cf. Heck, W. H., Mental Discipline and Educational Values. John Lane 
Co., New York, 1911, Chap. VI and VII. Also the authorities cited in the 
footnote, p. 448. 



458 Principles of Secondary Educatioit 

outside the schoolroom wherein such elements have signifi- 
cant counterparts. 

4. Careful attention should be given to building up general 
concepts of method and ideals of methodical procedure for 
the conscious purpose of rendering the discipline transferable. 

5. Whenever possible both subject matter and method should 
be presented by means of problems which are of such a nature 
that the pupils desire to attack and solve them for their own 
satisfaction rather than as perfunctory school tasks. 

Developing Powers of Interpretation. — The interpretive 
value of science is closely related to the disciplinary value ; and 
like this it is secured in very large measure by studying science 
according to the scientific method. The habits and ideals 
growing out of practice in organizing knowledge into systems, 
and practice in bringing particular cases and problematic situa- 
tions under the general and special systems where in accordance 
with their relations they properly belong, are the fundamental 
elements of interpretive power. One who is trained in this 
way will know how and where to look for the facts in any case, 
and what kind of principles to apply in dealing intelligently 
with them. He will know whether the matter in hand is a case 
for observation and experimentation, or a case to be settled by 
an appeal to authority, or whether it is simply a matter that 
goes back to a definition. Problems of interpretation are largely 
problems of deduction from known definitions, principles, and 
laws ; or they may be problems of explanation, — that is, of 
identifying facts as cases or consequences described by certain 
general principles or laws. 

Such acquaintance with systems of knowledge also tends to 
give one broad points of view, and a judicial, open-minded 
attitude toward all questions. It gives him an appreciation of 
proportion, — of the relative importance of things, — and there- 
fore enables him to gain such intellectual perspectives that his 
judgments on any question are likely to be good judgments, so 
far as he permits himself to judge. One so trained and cultured 



The Natural Sciences 459 

will know also when his judgment is likely to be poor, and who 
the experts are whose judgment of the question is certain to be 
good. He will in such cases consult the experts and accept 
their conclusions instead of his own. For example, if he were 
a member of a committee of a chamber of commerce that was 
to investigate the question of a pure water supply and a sewage 
disposal plant, and to make recommendations to the city council, 
he would not trust his own judgment unless indeed he were an 
expert sanitary engineer himself. If he were not such an expert, 
but had good general powers of scientific judgment, he would 
use his abihties in the selection of an expert sanitary engineer, 
and would base his recommendations to the council on ' the 
facts of the expert's report and the inferences that might logically 
be drawn from them. 

TEE TECHNIQUE OF INSTRUCTION IN THE 
SCIENCES 

CURRENT METHODS. — Three types of method have 
been commonly used in science instruction during the last ten 
or fifteen years, known respectively as the recitation, the lecture 
demonstration, and the laboratory lesson. These are supposed 
to be closely correlated in a carefully worked out plan ; but 
unfortunately actual inspection of the work carried on in many 
schools leads to the inference that they are seldom so related. 

As witnessed in a large majority of the schools, the recitations 
represent reproductions seriatim of sections of the subject 
matter as given in the textbook; and the laboratory lessons 
are discrete units or tasks to be done. The latter too often 
have little or no direct logical relation to the former, and in 
very many cases not even a remote relation. Thus while the 
current theory of the three methods of instruction is correct, 
the actual practice is far too often at variance with it. 

The Problem as the Center of Unification. — In the light of 
the principles at which we have arrived, the obvious remedy is 



460 Principles of Secondary Education 

to organize the class work, the demonstrations by the teacher, 
and the laboratory observations and experiments about definite 
well-chosen problems, at least so far as that is feasible. If 
there is no practice in dealing with problematic or forked-road 
situations, there can be no training in the scientific method, and 
most of the thinking that may be done will be accidental. It 
can scarcely be said too often that an effort to recall what some 
one else has thought out and written in a book or said in a lec- 
ture is not thinking, unless indeed the recall occurs in the pro- 
cesses of reflection and reasoning from the known to the unknown. 
A problematic situation, then, and not a recitation or a lecture 
demonstration or a laboratory exercise, should be the unit of 
instruction, excepting in the case of formal review lessons ; and 
even the latter are better when thrown into problematic form. 
The aim of the student should be to arrive by correct scientific 
thinking and experimenting at the solution of a significant prob- 
lem, rather than to recite a lesson or to "do a stunt " in the 
laboratory for the rather uninteresting purpose of getting a 
possible mark or escaping such disagreeable consequences as may 
be expected to follow a failure to satisfy the teacher's demands. 

This difference in the attitude of the pupil toward the unit of 
instruction may seem to some to be of little consequence so long 
as the pupils actually do the required work ; but it is really the 
condition that determines whether the work of the instructor 
shall be real scientific teaching or mere perfunctory school keep- 
ing. It is the condition that determines whether the pupils 
are to get training that shall make them at home among scientific 
ideas and scientific or practical problems, or are merely to be 
crammed with words and processes that they cannot intelhgently 
connect with things that are meaningful to them in life. 

THE CLASS CONFERENCE. — This term is to be preferred 
to the term " recitation." It represents more nearly the spirit 
in which the pupils and teacher should meet in the classroom, 
and the purpose for which they come together. They should 
meet not in order to take turns in trying to remember and recite 



The Natural Sciences 461 

what they have all conned from the same textbook, but rather 
to confer with one another and with the teacher for the purpose 
of putting together their individual stocks of significant facts, 
and criticizing one another's ideas, with reference to a problem 
in wliich they are interested and the solution of which they 
desire to find. 

The term " conference " implies that the teacher should not 
be the only one who asks questions nor the only one who sets 
forth facts and ideas for the enhghtenment of the others. In fact, 
some of the best class exercises the writer has witnessed have 
been those in which the pupils were fighting out a disputed ques- 
tion among themselves, one at a time against the pack, while 
the teacher stood, as it were, on the side lines, and acted as umpire 
and referee. Too often, the teacher monopolizes the spothght 
in the center of the stage, tells too much, and asks four or five 
inconsequential questions when one incisive query would suffice. 
One concise, well-directed question or stimulating suggestion 
from a skillful teacher is often sufficient to start a discussion in 
which all the required facts and ideas are brought out by the 
pupils themselves. 

The function of the teacher is to supply, by his own example, 
inspiration and stimulus for attentive, vigorous, consecutive, 
logical thinking and expression, and to see that all this activity 
is carried on by the pupils in an orderly and efficient manner. 
The pupils should be stimulated to ask questions of one another 
and of the teacher ; and when a question is raised, it should, if 
possible, be answered by the pupils rather than by the teacher. 
The things to be told by the teacher are those to which the 
pupils cannot find answers without too much loss of time. 
Such questions should be answered as concisely, as clearly, and 
as artistically as possible, and usually in such a way as to stimu- 
late curiosity and provoke further study and inquiry. 

Ordinarily, altogether too little importance is attached by 
teachers to the function of inciting the pupils to raise questions 
and to answer questions that other pupils raise. Too often the 



462 Principles of Secondary Edtication 

classroom meeting consists merely of a succession of dialogues 
between the teacher on one side and various individual pupils 
on the other side, in which the teacher does most of the talking, 
and in which the remainder of the class show httle or no interest 
for the reason that they know already very approximately what 
the substance of each dialogue is going to be. The frequency 
and logical significance of the questions asked by pupils supply 
one of the very best measures of the efficiency of a class conference. 

THE FUNCTION OF THE LABORATORY. — If the prin- 
ciple of the problem approach be accepted, then a somewhat 
different function is indicated for the laboratory experiments 
from that in common use. With the problem as the unit of 
instruction, the pupil goes to the laboratory to make an experi- 
mental test of an hypothesis which he has set up in the process 
of thinking on a problem. He is in the attitude not of " doing a 
stunt," as he would say, nor yet of " fixing a principle in mind," 
as some of the syllabus makers have said. Rather is he in the 
attitude of an inquirer eager to find an answer to a question, 
and putting the question up to nature herself. He goes there 
to get information direct from nature, just as the scientist does 
when he cannot find it in the works of other scientists. Since, 
however, he is not experienced enough to work independently 
as the scientist does, the teacher is present to be his helper, in- 
spirer, and guide. 

In the laboratory as well as in the classroom the good teacher 
avoids too much telHng, and often answers one question by ask- 
ing another, or by directing the student to a reference book or 
map or museum specimen where he can get the required infor- 
mation for himself. He cites a principle to apply oftener than 
he tells or shows a pupil exactly what to do. He makes every 
individual " stand on his own feet " in observing, thinking, and 
experimenting, so far as that indi\ddual is capable of doing so. 
By studying the pupils and the work, he knows when he should 
help a student and when he should allow him to blunder in order 
to find out how not to blunder again in a similar way. A com- 



The Nahtral Sciences 463 

mon fault of teachers is to give either too much help or too little. 
Those who know their subjects well usually give too much help, 
and those who have imperfect command of the subject are likely 
to go to the other extreme. Too many teachers know so little 
about their subjects that they do not find much in them to tell. 

The wise teacher will make much of every good idea or 
piece of work from the pupils, and will be very sparing of fault- 
finding. He will insist that every pupil complete the work 
that is assigned to him with as much thoroughness and excel- 
lence as he is capable of reaching in a reasonable amount of 
time. Faulty or careless work should not be punished or 
drastically criticized, but rather the student should be required 
to repeat the work and do better. It is not difficult to get 
pupils to set up an ideal of good work which their own interest 
compels them to make all reasonable efforts to meet. 

Efficient laboratory management demands that apparatus 
and materials be so methodically cared for and stored that the 
pupils may have it ready at hand at the beginning of the period, 
and a minimum of time be comsumed in preparing to begin 
work. 

When the materials are of such a nature that this is practi- 
cable they should be kept, methodically arranged, in drawers, 
lockers, or cases from which the students themselves can get 
them quickly, and to which they can return them quickly 
when they have finished their work. This is possible even 
with much of the apparatus used in physics ; but in this sub- 
ject some of the apparatus involves compfications in setting 
up and arranging that would entail too much loss of time if it 
were not conveniently placed on the table before the beginning 
of the period. 

In the time-consuming work of caring for, repairing, getting 
out, and replacing apparatus, the teacher should get as much 
help as is practicable from students. They will usually give 
it willingly if they are assigned to it in relays so that no one 
pupil has a burdensome amount to do. 



464 Principles of Seco7idary Education 

The following criteria will be useful guides in the selection 
of laboratory exercises : 

1. An exercise for the laboratory should provide the means 
of answering some question or questions that constitute 
essential steps in the solution of some problem that is sig- 
nificant to the students. 

2. It should have some direct and clear connection with 
what immediately precedes and follows it in the course. 

3. It should be one that compels careful observation, dis- 
crimination, and reflection, and that affords some opportunity 
for the development of skill and self-rehance in " putting 
questions up to nature." 

4. There should not be so many things to observe or do that 
mental confusion will result. 

5. It should be so easy of manipulation that the poorest of 
the qualified students can do the work with fair success and 
reasonable speed. 

6. It must be capable of being done by the students with a 
respectable degree of accuracy ; and such reasonable accuracy 
should be insisted on, else the students will have no faith in it 
or in what it is intended to teach. 

7. Wherever practicable the parts of the experiments should 
be so arranged that the results obtained in them will check one 
another, thus enabhng the students to judge their accuracy by 
the agreement among the results themselves instead of by 
comparison with the results given in the books. 

Number of Laboratory Exercises per Year. — There ought 
to be a sufficient number of experiments so that when sup- 
plemented by those made at the demonstration table the main 
outlines of the subject as presented shall rest back on them or 
on principles that can be shown to rest back on experiments 
and observations of a similar kind. The minimum amount 
of laboratory work for each of the sciences according to pre- 
vaiHng ideals and standards is such as will require from thirty 
to thirty-five double periods a year-. 

Size of Laboratory Divisions. — There is a very general 
agreement among leading science teachers that for the best 



The Natural .Sciences 465 

work there should not be more than twenty pupils in a labora- 
tory division. Exceptionally able teachers successfully handle 
as many as thirty, but the latter number is considered the 
upper limit, according to accepted standards of administra- 
tion, for both recitation and laboratory sections. 

Double Periods. — In physics and in chemistry the double 
laboratory period has come to be considered as an essential 
feature. Though perhaps not so necessary, it is also very 
desirable in tfie other science subjects. Nearly as much 
actual work can be done in a continuous period of ninety 
minutes as in three separate periods of forty-five minutes each. 
In many schools two double periods are given each week, 
throughout the year, to laboratory work, and three single 
periods to classroom work. In the opinion of the writer this 
is a larger proportion of the time than most teachers can 
profitably use for laboratory work, and the practice results in 
many cases in neglecting to have principles and applications 
thoroughly threshed out in class conferences and quizzes. 
Until the teaching becomes much better than it is now usually 
found to be, probably better results would be reached by hav- 
ing four single periods and one double laboratory period per 
week for each science. 

Form of Notes. — The notes made by the student on his 
experiments should contain (a) a full and clear but concise 
statement of the problem that is to be solved or the question 
that is to be answered by the experiment, (ft) a brief descrip- 
tion of the apparatus and materials used, (c) an explanation of 
the methods of procedure, {3) a clearly tabulated statement of 
numerical data and results, {i) all the calculations that were 
used in obtaining the results, (/) the conclusions that were 
reached, (g) a brief discussion of such sources of error as are 
profitable for the student to consider. The students should 
be required to express themselves by drawings and graphs 
wherever such modes of description are obviously of service, 
but care should be taken that they do not get the idea that 



466 Principles of Secondary Education 

drawings and graphs are ends instead of means. The teacher 
should use good judgment as to the amount of time that a 
student should spend in drawing. Much time is often wasted 
in useless embellishment of notebooks. Students should 
never be allowed to copy drawings from books. All drawing 
should be made directly from the objects that are to be 
represented ; and they should show clearly the particular 
features that are significant in the problem. Ordinarily a 
sectional diagram showing only the significant features is 
preferable to a perspective drawing. Set forms for notes 
containing blanks for the student to fill are often found in 
laboratory manuals and direction sheets. These are ingenious 
devices for saving the teachers' and students' time ; but they 
deprive the latter of the training that they ought to get in 
devising their own forms and arrangements, and in many 
cases also effectively prevent them from thinking. They are 
thus of doubtful value if not positively pernicious. The best 
kind of notes tell a straightforward story in the student's own 
language about what he wanted to find out, how he went 
about it, the steps by means of which he reached his answer, 
and what the answer was. 

The best sort of notebook is the loose-leaf type, and the best 
paper for general purposes is quadrille ruled, in squares one 
half centimeter or one fifth inch on a side.-^ 

Inspection of Notes by the Teacher. — All notes that 
belong directly to the laboratory work should be made in the 
laboratory at the time when the experimental work is done ; 
and the sheets on which they are made should not be taken 
from the laboratory until they have been inspected, checked, and 
released by the teacher, who should see that they are reason- 
ably full and accurate in statement, reasonably systematic in 
arrangement, and reasonably legible and presentable in form.^ 

1 The most convenient cover known to the writer is the I. P. Number 6 
made by the Irving Pitt Co., Kansas City, Mo. 

2 Cf. comments on specific habits p. 448, ante. 



The Natural Sciences 467 

The examination of notebooks is grueling work for the 
teacher, but there is no escape from it if the pupils are to be 
properly trained. The better the teacher is at inspiring his 
pupils with ideals of efficiency, the less arduous his work with 
the notebooks will be. If each exercise is graded before correc- 
tion by the student, and if correction is required to hold the 
grade, the pupils will be more careful not to make mistakes. 

LECTURE DEMONSTRATIONS. — The reader who has 
accepted the principles of science teaching that have been set 
forth in this chapter will agree with the writer that the lecture 
method finds a very Hmited place in the instruction of second- 
ary students. Occasionally, however, it may have an impor- 
tant function. 

1. When any of the sciences is presented as a series of prob- 
lems after the manner that has been described, there are gaps 
to be fi,lled and information to be supplied in order that the 
subject may be adequately covered as a whole, in its broader 
outlines, so that unity and coherence of presentation may be 
preserved. Such information may be effectively presented by 
informal talks or lectures. 

2. Accounts of new discoveries, classical experiments and 
researches, scientific information of local interest, or of interest 
in connection with current events may be presented occasion- 
ally by lecture and demonstration with preparations, experi- 
ments, or lantern slides, as a scientific treat for purposes of 
inspiration and motivation. 

FIELD OBSERVATION. — In Germany and France, the 
practice of making class excursions for field observation in 
connection with school studies has long been in vogue. That 
we have no more of it in this country than the very little 
we do have is one of the results of our custom of employing 
as teachers and supervisors persons who are not specially 
trained and educated for their work. When this form of 
instruction is uniformly advocated by experts in the various 
sciences — some going so far as to say that it is indispensable — 



468 Principles of Secondary Education 

and when at the same time it is not generally done, we must 
conclude either that the teachers fail to know its value or 
that they do not know how to carry it on. In fact most science 
teachers freely admit its value, but urge certain difficulties as 
reasons why they cannot do it. Let us consider a few of these 
objections, and the answers to them. 

1. Excursions are not favored by school authorities above 
the teacher, or by the parents. Answer. By conducting 
successful voluntary excursions with pupils whose parents do 
not object, the teachers can demonstrate their value. 

2. The school program cannot be so arranged that excur- 
sions may be carried on in school hours. Answer. Those 
sciences in which outdoor observation is most essential can 
often be assigned the last or last two periods in the session ; 
so pupils can be free from other work for the last periods and 
may use them and the remainder of the afternoon for the 
excursion. In many cases, outdoor material of great value 
is to be found near the school, and can be visited in a double 
school period. A roadside ditch, a row of shade trees, a vacant 
lot, a blacksmith's or harness shop, all are nature laboratories 
to him who has eyes to see. If no other way can be found, 
after-school and Saturday excursions are feasible for a large 
majority of the pupils ; and if a number of these are made 
during the year, even those pupils who have " music lessons " 
and " home duties " will probably be able to attend a part of 
them. If it is objected that attendance cannot be required, 
the answer is, make them voluntary, and so significant and 
interesting that the pupils will attend if they possibly can. 

3. There is nothing in this locality to be seen. Answer. 
The writer has as yet failed to find a locality where there 
was not considerable material to see within striking distance 
of the school. 

4. The best localities for study are too far away. Answer. 
In village and rural schools this is seldom true ; and if it is, 
there are always opportunities near the school for field studies 



The Natural Sciences 469 

in biology and geography, and there are always a few local 
industries of interest in connection with physics or chemistry. 
These, although not the best, may be well worth visiting. In 
the large cities distances and the difi&culties of managing 
transportation present real and often great obstacles ; but the 
fact that some teachers always overcome the difficulties proves 
that usually they may be overcome. In such localities doubt- 
less the excursions must almost always be voluntary, and the 
attendance of all pupils on all the excursions cannot be secured ; 
but teachers who are resourceful enough to make the excur- 
sions of real worth to the students secure a large enough 
attendance to make the practice well worth while. 

The following suggestions from the experience of the writer 
and others, who have handled large bodies of students in such 
excursions, will prove to be useful. 

(i) The maximum number of pupils that can be conven- 
iently handled by one teacher is ordinarily from twenty-five to 
thirty-five. Exceptionally resourceful teachers can handle a 
larger number and keep them at work, but inexperienced 
teachers would better begin with groups of twenty or less. 

(2) The teacher should first make himself thoroughly 
acquainted with the ground to be visited, with the route and 
means of transportation, and with the special objects to be 
observed and studied. 

(3) The observations should be directed to specific features 
or phenomena that are factors in some problem or problems 
that have been set up for solution. 

(4) The field lesson should be carefully outlined in a lesson 
plan that has been checked up by the teacher on the ground, 
and the plan should be adhered to while the class is in the field. 

(5) Mimeographed sheets should be provided beforehand 
containing questions to be answered from observation and 
reflection. They should also contain needed directions, hints, 
or suggestions, for making effective observations, for recording 
results, and for collecting specimens for individual or school 



470 Principles of Secondary Education 

cabinets. It would be better to have these in the hands of 
the students a day or two before the excursion is made. 
These sheets are to perform the same function for the field 
work that the laboratory manual performs for the laboratory 
work. 

(6) The field work should be explained and the field prob- 
lems outhned in the classroom on the day before the excur- 
sion. The teacher should carefully refrain from answering 
questions that the pupils can answer for themselves as a result 
of the field study, but he should make sure that the students 
understand exactly what they are to look for and to do, 
exactly what rules of order and disciphne they are expected to 
conform to, and exactly what is the nature of the problems 
that they are expected to solve in the field. If they are to 
make collections, they should.be told exactly what kinds of 
samples and specimens they are expected to get and how they 
are to care for them. 

(7) At the next class meeting after the excursion the prob- 
lems, the observations, and their bearings on the solution of 
the problems should be thoroughly discussed, and the informa- 
tion and conclusions should be organized so that when the 
discussion has been concluded, some definite things have been 
learned, and some tentative or final conclusions of a perfectly 
definite nature have been reached. 

REVIEWS. — A working knowledge of the content of the 
subject is a necessary part of the ability which the successful 
study of any science ought to impart ; and although it is 
claimed that both an understanding of the concepts and princi- 
ples of a science and the abihty to recall them when needed 
are best acquired through solving significant problems, it 
should be clearly understood that knowledge once acquired is 
usually forgotten in large part unless occasions for its recall 
occur at intervals and the part that has been wholly or partly 
forgotten is relearned. The purpose of the review, then, is to 
strengthen the association bonds which should be made per- 



The Natural Sciences 471 

manent but which as yet are weak. Both pedagogical experi- 
ence and the few experimental studies of memorizing and for- 
getting that have been made indicate that it is more economical 
to review or relearn frequently at first and then at greater and 
greater intervals, than it is to try by many repetitions to fix 
the memory bonds permanently during the first learning period. 
So far as our present knowledge of learning and forgetting 
goes, it confirms the very general opinion of successful teachers 
that frequent reviews are necessary. The time-honored cus- 
tom of conducting carefully planned formal reviews at the 
end of each week, each month, and each term, and at the end 
of the year, should be adhered to. The intervals need not be 
exactly those mentioned, but may preferably be adjusted to 
the minor and major logical divisions of the subject matter. 
Efficiency requires that we spend no time unnecessarily on 
that which is most easily and permanently remembered, or on 
formally reviewing that which is bound to be recalled anyway 
at sufficiently frequent intervals in consequence of being 
needed as bases for conclusions to be reached in later lessons. 
It requires us, rather, to select carefully that which most needs 
to be relearned ; and to drill on that at intervals of increasing 
length until it is correctly recalled when required. 

Hence, the review lesson has two obvious functions : 
(i) to find out what things have been wholly or partly forgotten 
and need to be relearned ; and (2) to provide situations that 
will cause the students to relearn them. Topical recitations, 
written recitations, and review matches in which sides are 
chosen and total scores compared, are all effective for organiz- 
ing subject matter, or for fixing it in mind.^ 

The Topical Recitation. — Pupils write on the blackboard 
the headings and subheadings of a topical outHne. Other 
pupils in turn briefly and rapidly explain the more important 
facts and relations that come under the topics. Each is 

^ Cf. Strayer, G. D., ^ Briej Course in the Teaching Process. Ma.cmillan, 
New York, 1912, Chap. IX. 



472 Principles of Secondary Education 

quizzed by the teacher whenever the latter suspects that his 
specific knowledge of the content represented by the sub- 
headings is inadequate. The teacher also stimulates the other 
pupils to quiz him when they desire fuller information as to 
any of the subtopics. Occasionally one recites on a topic 
without the aid of a blackboard outline. These outUnes 
should be made by the pupils, never dictated by the teacher. 
The habit of making such outhnes should be formed in con- 
nection with summing up and organizing the subject matter 
in the class conferences. 

Written Reviews. — These are very useful not only as 
reviews but also as furnishing practice to the pupils in reducing 
their acquired information to writing on demand. Students 
who have examinations to pass should have much practice of 
this kind. One reason why so many students " go to pieces " 
on examinations is that they have not had sufficient practice 
in taking written tests to acquire famiharity with that kind of 
situation and skill in that kind of performance. Questions and 
numerical problems for such reviews should be numerous and 
short, rather than long and complicated. They should be so 
framed as to call for a maximum of content with a minimum 
of writing, and should be spHt up into units representing facts, 
meanings, relations, etc., having values that supposedly are 
approximately equal. Thus each item may receive a single 
and definite score. This makes grading easy, and also more 
just. It also makes it possible to find out which ideas are the 
hardest for the pupils or are least perfectly known by them. 
An idea, for example, which is reproduced correctly by 50 per 
cent of the pupils is of median difficulty for the class ; and 
one which is reproduced correctly by only 25 per cent 
of the pupils is more difficult than the former, but less difficult 
than one that is correctly reproduced by only 20 per cent. 
One which is reproduced correctly by all of them is so easy 
[i.e. has been so well learned) that it did not need to be re- 
viewed. 



The Natural Sciences 473 

TEE SCIENCES AND THE CURRICULUM 

COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS. — The high 
schools grew out of a popular demand for a kind of secondary 
education that would be better adapted to the needs of all 
classes than was that given by the academies and college 
preparatory schools ; " but the high schools gravitated toward 
the colleges, as the academies had done before them." ^ 
The teachers and principals gave their best energies toward 
the preparation for college of the small percentage of their 
pupils whose aim was toward a higher education. Previous 
to the last decade of the nineteenth century every college 
set its entrance requirements in accordance with its own 
notions, without reference to those of any other college ; and 
the high schools tried to meet them all, so that their graduates 
might pass the entrance examinations of the various colleges 
that they wished to attend. The lack of uniformity in the 
preparation required by different students in the same school, 
and the conflict between the needs of those who were preparing 
for college and those who were aiming directly toward em- 
ployment in the various occupations, brought about an intoler- 
able situation for the high schools. Greater uniformity in the 
administrative machinery that had to do with admission to the 
colleges, and a simplification of the means of adjustment 
became an urgent necessity. The movement toward uniform- 
ity began with the Report of the Committee of 'Ten of the 
National Education Association in 1893, gathered headway 
with the reports of the Committee on College Entrance Re- 
quirements of the same association in 1896 and 1899, and 
culminated in the organization of the College Entrance Ex- 
amination Board in 1900.^ The reports and syllabi published 
by these committees, and the bulletins of the College Entrance 

1 Brown, Elmer E., The Making of Our Middle Schools. Longmans, Green, 
& Co., New York, 1902, p. 373. 

2 Cf. Mann, C. R., The Teaching of Physics. The Macmillan Co., 191 2, 
Chap. I. 



474 Principles of Secondary Education 

Board of the various colleges, and of certain state departments 
of education, all of which have been based mainly on those 
reports, have in large measure shaped the curricula of the high 
schools and determined the character of the teaching. 

As far as science is concerned the results have been both good 
and bad. Among the good results are the establishment of the 
principles (i) that high school teachers should have adequate 
collegiate training for their work, (2) that laboratory work, 
field excursions, and some reference book work should be 
carried on in connection with each of the sciences, (3) that 
schools should be adequately equipped with laboratories, 
apparatus, and libraries for such work, (4) that double labora- 
tory periods for the laboratory exercises should be provided 
in the time schedules, (5) that laboratory notes should be sys- 
tematically entered in suitable books by the students, and 
(6) that the pupils should be taught not merely to memorize, . 
but to think. Among the bad results have been (i) the tend- 
ency to cast all the instruction in one mold in the attempts 
to meet the specifications of syllabi and examinations, (2) the 
overemphasis on the assimilation of subject matter and the 
consequent undervaluation of the scientific method of study, 
by means of which the subject matter of science is best acquired, 
and most of all (3) the discouragement of initiative on the part 
of school teachers and administrators because of the burden- 
some amounts of subject matter that were called for by these 
authoritative syllabi. The tendency was rather toward 
cramming the pupils with facts and laws than toward putting 
them in situations that would necessitate thinking. The 
path for reform lies obviously in the direction of changes in the 
syllabi in consequence of which they shall contain a minimum 
of prescription and a maximum of suggestion, especially as 
to the use of the scientific method or problem approach in 
teaching, as to the organization of the subject matter about 
suitable problems for observational and experimental study, 
and as to the rich variety of practical appKcations of scientific 



The Natural Sciences 475 

principles and laws that may be found in all sorts of localities. 
The introduction of such flexible and suggestive syllabi must 
be accompanied also by better training of science teachers 
themselves. Science teachers should not know less of their 
special subjects than they do, but they should be given a 
wider range of scientific knowledge, better training in the prin- 
ciples of the scientific method, and some special, training in 
modern psychology as applied in the principles of teaching. 

Along with more flexible syllabi and better training of 
teachers for intelKgent experimentation on both subject mat- 
ters and methods of teaching must come an attitude and a 
procedure on the part of both college professors and school 
administrators which shall make science teachers feel free to 
apply the method of intentional variation, testing, and selec- 
tion to both subject matter and methods. In other words 
teachers must apply the scientific method to the study of their 
teaching problems, if science study is to do for their pupils what 
scientists and psychologists believe that it can do and ought 
to do. We must learn to teach science more nearly in a scien- 
tific — that is, in a psychological — way ; and this we can 
learn only by observation, experimentation, and measurement. 
This means that a selected few of the best trained, most enter- 
prising, and ablest secondary science teachers must become 
research students in experimental pedagogy, and that the 
results of their experiments must be published, critically 
reviewed, and put into the hands of all science teachers as 
suggestive material for their further guidance. 

THE SCIENCE SUB JECTS. — The subjects that are 
now more or less generally taught in high schools are physical 
geography, botany, zoology, physiology, physics, and chemistry. 
Astronomy and geology, which were widely in vogue up to 
about 1880, are now seldom taught in high schools. Meteorol- 
ogy, which was strongly recommended by the Committee of 
Ten as an advanced elective, is almost never taught as a sepa- 
rate science, but the most significant portion of its content is 



476 Principles of Secondary Education 

pretty generally taught as a part of physical geography, or in 
connection with " general science " courses, which are being 
introduced in some schools as an experiment. Agriculture is 
also coming rapidly to be a part of the curriculum in many 
rural, village, and agricultural high schools ; and even in 
some of the technical high schools in large cities. 

The Committee on College Entrance Requirements recom- 
mended for high schools the following courses in the natural 
and physical sciences, to be given in the order named : 

First year, physical geography ; second year, biology or 
botany or zoology, or botany and zoology ; third year, physics ; 
fourth year, chemistry. 

It seems to be very generally agreed, on both theoretical and 
practical grounds, that the general order recommended by the 
Committee is the best. In fact the general order here given is 
usually followed; although physical geography is frequently 
given as a half-year course, either followed by physiology or 
botany or agriculture or preceded by a half-year course in 
" elementary " or " general " science. The recommendation 
" that the time allowance for each of these courses be at least 
four periods a week throughout the year " ^ has also been 
pretty generally followed, although the definition of the unit 
has since received a modification giving it greater flexibility, 
A unit in science is now defined as the equivalent of one 
hundred and twenty sixty-minute hours of classroom work, 
two hours of laboratory or field work counting as one hour of 
class work.2 

GEOGRAPEY 

GEOGRAPHIC CONTROLS. — The activities of man in 
carrying out his life purposes are controlled by the distribution 
of heat and moisture. These in turn are controlled by the 

1 Proc. N. E. A., 1899, p. 651. ' 

2 Document 48, December i, 1910, College Entrance Board. Substation 84, 
New York. 



The Natural Sciences 477 

movements of the atmosphere, and these again by the form and 
movements of the earth and its relations to the sun. Streams, 
lakes, and oceans, mountains, plains, plateaus, valleys, and 
shore lines, all combine in various ways to affect his activities 
both directly and through their effects on the distribution of 
plants and animals, of soils and other mineral resources. 
All these interdependent forms and agencies constitute the 
environment to which man must adjust himself, or which, 
when he can with advantage, he adjusts to himself. To 
effect this adjustment to his environment he must under- 
stand it, — he must comprehend it ; and herein lies the central 
motive for the study of geography. The process of adjust- 
ment, which is life itself, gives rise to multitudes of problems 
to be solved. Problems of vital utihty and problems of absorb- 
ing intellectual interest grow directly out of the pupil's daily 
life, and reach out to the distant parts of the earth and off 
through millions of miles of space to the sun. 

BEGIN WITH LOCAL PROBLEMS. — To the teacher 
who has the point of view that has been set forth in this chapter 
it will be obvious that the study of physical geography should 
begin with intimate home problems. Perhaps no better one 
to begin with could be found than that suggested by the ques- 
tion " How do we get our drinking and wash water ? " In the 
country this would lead at once to wells and cisterns and the 
conditions that maintain them, and thence to the sources and 
movements of ground water. This would lead to problems of 
farm and village drainage, the effect on crops, and to other 
related facts and conditions affecting or controlHng farm 
and village life. Directly connected with drainage problems 
are the problems of soils. What kinds of soils are found in 
this locality ? What crops grow best in each kind ? Why do 
these soils differ ? From what were they made ? (Rocks and 
rock-forming minerals.) These questions lead to the study of 
the processes of weathering and stream erosion as related to 
rainfall and to the production and transportation of rock 



47^ Principles of Secondary Education 

waste. The study of neighboring streams, which the solution 
of these problems necessitates, raises other questions as to 
where the stream begins (springs and lakes) and where it goes 
(river system, river basin, life history of rivers, and the kinds 
of control rivers exert on population at their various stages of 
development). The study of the drainage basin to which the 
locality belongs also leads, either immediately or later, as the 
teacher may decide, to the study of the larger physiographic 
region of which it is a part, and to the life relations that exist 
between this part and the whole. The study of the local 
rainfall in relation to water supply for man, beast, and vegeta- 
tion leads back to the conditions that produce the precipita- 
tion and distribution of atmospheric moisture ; and this in 
turn to atmospheric movements, weather, climate, and the 
relation of climate to topographic features. Thus each prob- 
lem suggests others which are more or less closely related to it, 
or grow directly out of it. As these problems are solved, the 
information accumulated should be organized and built up 
into small systems,^ which in turn are incorporated into larger 
outlines as the knowledge of the pupils grows. In the city the 
question of water supply leads to a study of the city water 
plant, this to the source of supply, and this in turn to the study 
of streams and their work. The problem of city sewage dis- 
posal leads also to the streams and suggests a question of 
grave import to every city. Is our water supply polluted 
by sewage from our own city or elsewhere ? 

Again, what roads and railways bring in our food and raw 
materials and carry out our manufactured products? Why 
were these routes chosen ? (Valleys, ancient lake beaches, 
mountain barriers and passes, road-making materials, etc.) 
There should be no difficulty in starting such problems in 
approaching any new topic whatever. If the teacher is not 
inhibited by traditions of " logical order," they will bristle 
up in such abundance that one will be ready for every lesson. 

^ Cf. p. 452, ante. 



The Natural Scieiices 479 

For the child, the personal relation is the natural, psychological 
starting point of interest in every one of them ; ^ and next to 
this comes the social relation.^ The question, " Where does 
our coal come from? " leads not only, say to the dissected Al- 
legheny plateau and its origin and history as a physiographic 
feature, but also to the questions. What kinds of people 
are the miners who get this coal out of the ground for us? 
How do they Uve? How do they work? Where do they 
come from ? (Poland, Hungary, Sicily, etc.) Why did they 
emigrate? So the same problem, according to the turn the 
teacher gives it, leads, through personal and social relations, 
to the study of a distant part of our own country or even to 
the countries beyond the seas. 

TEXTBOOKS. — There are half a dozen excellent and 
(at least to an adult) attractive textbooks on physical geog- 
raphy which differ but little one from another either in the 
amount or the choice of subject matter that they present. It 
matters little which one the teacher uses. What really 
matters is the way in which he uses it. |The wrong way is to 
assign a lesson to be studied and recited from the book. The 
right way is to start a problem and send the pupils to the book 
for information which, combined with their own observations 
and reflections, and the assistance given by the teacher, will 
help them to solve it. [Textbook study, field and laboratory 
study, class conferences, all then become means instead of 
endsj For the pupil the end is no longer to make a perfunc- 
tory recitation from artificial acaderhic motives, but to find 
out something that he wants to know, because he can see that 
it has meaning and value in connection with the reaHzation 
of his own life purposes and activities and with the purposes 
and activities of people whom he finds are in some way related 
to hinxMThe textbook then finds its proper place as a mine 

1 Cf. Dewey, John., Interest aitd Efort. Houghton, Mifflin Co., IQ13, pp. 
23 ff. 



480 Principles of Secondary Educatio7i 

of information and a guide for organization and review. 
" Pupils, from the start, must be impressed with the fact that 
geography is a study of the earth and not of the book." ^ \ 

In connection with the use of a textbook it is important for 
the teachers to recognize three facts : (i) Every one of the 
textbooks has more matter in it than any high school pupil 
can assimilate in a year ; hence selection is absolutely neces- 
sary. (2) The teacher should make the selection, using only 
the materials that can be made significant and comprehensible 
to the pupils of his own locaHty. There is more danger in 
attempting to cover too much ground than there is of covering 
too little. (3) There will always be differences in the sig- 
nificance of topics due to differences between localities ; and 
therefore for any locality the treatment of the text on some 
topics m'ay not be full enough to suit the case. Here the 
teacher must supplement the text from other sources, such as 
special monographs and government reports. On this princi- 
ple, the pupils of Colorado would study mountains in more 
detail and pay less attention to the ocean and shore lines than 
would pupils on the sea coast. The latter would study moun- 
tains less in detail because mountains and mountainous con- 
ditions are farther removed from their actual experience and 
are therefore less significant to them. A careful study of the 
local features is the only means of rendering the unseen fea- 
tures intelligible. 

REPORTS OF NATIONAL COMMITTEES, BOOKS, AND 
MAGAZINE ARTICLES. — The young teachers of physical 
and commercial geography will find themselves highly favored 
with suggestive material for their guidance in choice of sub- 
ject matter and special methods of instruction, for leading 
geographers have written generously for their guidance. 
Every teacher of this subject should study carefully the 
Report of the Conferences on Geography in the Report of the 

1 Sutherland, William J., The Teaching of Geography. Scott, Foresman & 
Co., Chicago, 1909, p. 43. 



The Natural Sciences 481 

Committee of Ten ^ and the Report of the Committee on Col- 
lege Entrance Requirements of the National Education Associ- 
ation,^ the Report of the Committee on Geography of the 
Department of Science Instruction of the N. E. K.f the Report 
of the Committee on Geography for Secondary Schools of the 
Association of American Geographers.^ In the last of these 
reports, there will be noted a general progressive tendency 
away from the specialized " physiography " that had become 
common in 1909 and toward a humanized " general geography " 
which emphasizes human adjustments to geographic controls.^ 
With this movement the writer is in heartiest sympathy. 
Three magazines, to which every secondary geography teacher 
should have frequent access, are replete with suggestive mate- 
rial, on both subject matter and method. School Science and 
Mathematics,^ The Journal of Geography,'' and The National 
Geographic Magazine,^ and no geography teacher can afford 
not to own and study The International Geography.^ The 
Teaching of Geography, by William J. Sutherland, although 
intended primarily for grade teachers, is the most helpful guide 
for secondary teachers known to the writer ; and is entirely 
free from the taint of " faculty " and " formal discipHne " 
psychology against which the teacher must be on his guard in 
most of the pedagogical Uterature on the subject. It contains 
extensive and carefully selected bibliographies and sugges- 
tions for laboratory equipment.^*^ 

1 American Book Co., 1894. 

2 Proc. N. E. A., 1899, pp. 632 ff. and 780 ff. 

* Proc. N. E. A., 1909, p. 820. 

* Journal of Geography, Madison, Wis., Vol. IX, No. 3, p. 57 ; No. 9, p. 244. 
Reports 1,3, and 4 are abstracted in Whitbeck and Martin, The High School 
Course in Geography, Bulletin No. 382, University of Wisconsin, an exceed- 
ingly valuable pamphlet. 

5 Whitbeck, R. H., and Martin, L., op. cit. 

6 Published by Smith and Turton, No. 2059 E. 7 2d Place, Chicago. 
^ PubHshed at Madison, Wis. 

8 Published by the Nat. Geog. Soc, Washington, D.C. 

3 Edited by Mill, R. H., D. Appleton & Co., New York, $3.50. 
1" Published by Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago, 1909. 



482 Principles of Secondary Education 

PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES. — The processes which 
combine to produce the different land forms are of three general 
kinds. 

1 . Large areas of the earth's crust slowly sink down in some 
parts of the earth and other areas are arched or folded upward. 

2. The crust in some places becomes fractured, and lava is 
thrust up from the heated interior, either locally as in volca- 
noes and fissure eruptions, or over large areas as in the case of 
the Columbia River lava plateau. 

3. The elevated lands are weathered by the action of the 
atmospheric gases and moisture combined with changes of 
temperature ; and the water that falls on them as rain or snow 
moves downward as streams or glaciers, carrying away the 
wasted rock and grinding down the land. The condition of 
the land and the forms into which it is molded or carved are 
the resultant of these three kinds of processes, just as each of 
these processes is itself the resultant of physical and chemical 
forces and conditions that are operating in various combina- 
tions everywhere and at all times. 

The Geographic Cycle. — Because these physiographic 
processes follow in sequences of cause and effect, there 
results in the case of a plain, plateau, or mountain system a 
sequence of changes whereby valleys are carved into the 
uphfted lands and are gradually deepened and widened until 
ultimately the uplands between are worn away to a very 
even and gently sloping plain interrupted only by occasional 
portions of the more resistant uplands. Thus the streams 
themselves and the lands through which they flow go through 
sequences of changes which can be predicted when the con- 
ditions are known, and which are somewhat analogous to the 
larger changes that go on in the Ufe history of a plant 
or animal. This notion of a geographic cycle including the 
life history periods of youth, maturity, and old age, when 
applied to river systems, lakes, plains, mountains, and shore 
lines, is very useful as a means of organizing geographical 



The Natural Sciences 483 

facts and phenomena into condensed and meaningful concepts 
that are easy to remember because of their obvious causal 
relations. These concepts in turn are useful in connection 
with the understanding of the controls that these physio- 
graphic features, when combined with natural and social 
forces, exert on the life and activities of the people who live 
near them. 

Physiographic Controls. — ■ Thus we have the controls of 
temperature and moisture, of rocks and soils, of the atmosphere 
and its movements, of the mutual interactions of living things 
(organic controls), of topographic features and barriers, and 
of the forces and motives that direct human conduct (human 
and social controls) . So also we have the responses of individ- 
uals and social groups to these controls. Some of the most 
interesting responses are those wherein organized groups of 
men, such as corporations and state or national governments, 
through their agents and engineers build roads and railroads, 
irrigate deserts, dig a Panama Canal, dredge harbors, dam and 
bridge streams, create forest reserves, build fires in orchards on 
frosty nights, and do many other things that control nature 
herself for human needs. All such actions and reactions 
constitute the processes of geographic adjustment whereby 
men get on with nature and with one another. The study of 
all these controls and adjustments, their causes and conse- 
quences, involves the consideration of causes and effects. 
Not merely what is this like and where is it located, but how 
came it to be, and what will be the consequences, are the ques- 
tions for which the inquiring mind seeks answers ; and the 
boys and girls have a right to these answers so far as they want 
them, can understand them, and can get them mostly through 
their own efforts. 

PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION AND ORDER. — Summing 
up, then, we have the controlling principles of method : 
(i) begin with problems and begin at home ; (2) connect the 
far with the near and the unknown with the known by human 



■484 Principles of Secondary Education 

relationships ; (3) use the textbook as a help in the accumula- 
tion and organization of facts ; (4) use the causal notion as a 
link for organization in the ordering of concepts ; (5) trace 
physiographic features back to physiographic processes and 
these back to physical causes ; (6) use the cycle concept and 
the concept of adjustment as unifying principles. 

FIELD WORK, LABORATORY WORK, AND EQUIP- 
MENT. — The textbook has been referred to as a mine of 
information, but its information can become meaningful only 
when it connects up with knowledge gained by observation 
at first hand in the field and laboratory. The laboratory work 
is immensely important but is less so than the field observation. 
It cannot be presumed that the casual observation of out-of- 
door facts by the pupils will be sufficient to make the labora- 
tory work and the textbook study meaningful. 

As much has been said about field and laboratory methods 
as our space will allow. -^ One hint for each must suffice. 
Study weathering of bowlders, or of monuments in a cemetery 
or of stones in old houses, if no exposed rocks can be found. 
Study erosion of exposed earth thrown from a building excava- 
tion or in a railroad embankment, if no stream is within reach. 
Gullies showing in miniature nearly all the stages of stream 
work and valley development can be found even in cities. 
Make maps and sketches, describe processes, state causes for 
variations in form, direction, slope, and width of gullies, and 
for speed of water in different parts. Find miniature alluvial 
fans and deltas. Compare with text descriptions, maps, and 
pictures of similar features on a larger scale in other places. 
In the laboratory, study minerals and rocks, wall maps, large- 
scale topographic maps. Read and interpret maps and pic- 
tures ; infer life conditions ; and verify inferences from gazet- 
teers and reports. On topographic maps follow roads and 
railroads and infer why they are located as they are. Study 
weather maps. Describe weather and make predictions. 

^ Ante, pp. 462-470. 



The Natural Sciences 485 

Follow the storms across the country in a succession of weather 
maps and compare observation with newspaper accounts. 
These are mere suggestions by way of illustration. The 
teacher will find information and hints as to field and labora- 
tory problems, and as to equipment of laboratories in the 
appendices of Davis' and Tarr's Physical Geographies, in 
Sutherland,^ in Whitbeck and Martin's bulletin,^ in any of 
the laboratory manuals that are put out to accompany the 
well-known texts, and in the references in the bibliography. 
It should always be borne in mind that a laboratory exercise, 
if it is to be of real educative value, is not to be a disciplinary 
task, but a step in the solution of a problem.^ 

ORDER OF TOPICS. — The general order of topics favored 
by the writer is as follows: i. Underground water. 2. 
Streams and lakes. 3. Rocks and soils. 4. The lands. 
5. The atmosphere. 6. The earth as a whole. 7. Review of 
physical geography on a regional basis. 8. Review on the 
basis of distribution of vegetation and animal life. 9. Re- 
view on the basis of human relationships, economic, industrial, 
and social. 10. Review on the basis of locational geography.^ 
Let the pupils list the significant places mentioned in current 
numbers of the daily newspaper and the Review of Reviews, 
Literary Digest, or Current Opinion. Locate them accurately 
on the wall maps, and drill by locating them on outline seat 
maps such as are used in history study. This kind of work 
should not be confined to the final review, but should be car- 
ried on also in connection with the other phases of the sub- 
ject. All places, streams, plains, mountains, and the like, 
whose locations are important should be located when studied 
as types or examples. For example, if the " fall line " that 
marks the boundary between the Piedmont plateau and the 
Atlantic coastal plain is being studied, the principal manu- 

1 Op. cit., pp. 193 fE., 202 ff., 211 ff., and Chaps. XIX, XX, and XXI. 

2 Op. cit., pp. 36-41. 2 Cf. p. 462, ante. 
* Cf. Whitbeck and Martin, op. cit., pp. 27 ff. 



486 Principles of Secondary Education 

facturing cities that mark the line should be located in the 
manner described. 

The order recommended is not necessarily the best for all 
schools. Other orders may be as good ; but the writer is 
convinced that it is a pedagogical mistake to begin with 
mathematical geography. No better way to kill interest 
could be found. 

BIOLOGY 

BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. — Plants and animals may be 
either useful or harmful to man and his activities. They 
are sources of manifold utilities. Their life activities present 
features of dramatic interest, for they are often compelled to 
engage in fierce competition in the hard struggle for existence, 
■ — to fight for their lives in the midst of a hostile environment. 
Their activities bear many obvious analogies to those of the 
human body. Like the human body a plant or an animal is a 
living, working machine, whose parts are adapted, both in 
form and structure, to perform certain functions in the service 
of the whole. 

They thus present a multitude of problems that are of 
immediate and intense human interest, if approached from 
the side that is suggested by such human relations as have 
been mentioned. Biological study therefore affords inter- 
esting and absorbing opportunities for acquiring information 
that is useful to everybody in many fields of thought and 
work. Not only that, but it enables the teacher who has 
broad biological points of view to lead his pupils in directing 
their thinking in the biological field, and also their interpreta- 
tions of human activities, from these illuminating and sug- 
gestive viewpoints. 

POINTS OF VIEW FROM BIOLOGICAL STUDY.— 
One gets a certain point of view when he has come through 
first-hand observation to know that every Hving plant or 
animal is made up of cells which are themselves living individ- 



The Natural Sciences 487 

uals like the amoeba or the unicellular plant. He has 
gained a broader outlook when he realizes that the necessity of 
adaptation to more complex and difficult situations is accom- 
panied by division of labor, by differentiation of functions, so 
that special groups of cells are modified in form, structure, and 
distribution, with the result that each group performs some 
one of the specialized activities that are necessary to the sur- 
vival of the organism in its more complex environment. He 
can see farther still if he gets the notion that there is in plant 
and in animal Hfe a series of great groups beginning with 
unicellular forms and continually increasing in complexity by 
such divisions of labor and specializations of organs. If, 
through observations and experiments which he makes him- 
self, he learns of the responses that plants make to the stimuli 
of light, gravity, moisture, soil, pressure, or atmosphere, to 
other plants, and to insects ; if he notes the general process of 
adjustment of which these responses are the elementary fac- 
tors ; if he gets even elementary notions of development, of 
variation, of elimination and survival, of mutations and inheri- 
tance as factors in biological evolution, he gains an outlook on 
life as a whole that will make more meaningful everything that 
he afterwards learns about living things.^ 

Further if the student learns the meaning of biological 
observations, experiments, descriptions, and interpretations, 
and perceives the relations of form and structure to functions, 
he will get the experimental point of view and perhaps habits of 
attacking his problems in a methodical way. He may perhaps 
come to prefer first-hand knowledge to book knowledge in some 
limited field at least. He may not be able to make discoveries, 
nor to settle the mooted questions of biology ; but he will be 
able to find out for himself some things that are new to him, 
and to get some clear notions as to how biological questions 

1 In this connection caution is necessary. The reader should study carefully 
the discussion by Professor Bigelow as to how far the teaching of evolution should 
be carried in secondary schools. Lloyd, F. E., and Bigelow, M. A., The Teach- 
ing of Biology in Secondary Schools. Longmans, New York, 1904, pp. 286 £f. 



488 Principles of Secondary Education 

should be attacked. Particularly, he can be taught the 
meaning and use of a control experiment/ and how to tell a 
good experiment from the bad one from which no logical con- 
clusions can be drawn. 

PRINCIPLES TO BE OBSERVED IN A BIOLOGICAL 
COURSE. — There are certain biological and pedagogical 
principles that should be prominent in the mind of the teacher 
in shaping and conducting a course in either botany or zoology 
or human biology. 

I. The development of the type concept. When we speak 
of the frog or the common buttercup {Ranunculus bulbosus), 
ordinarily, we do not mean any particular individual, nor do 
we mean all the animals or all the plants of the species named. 
Rather vv^e mean any one that is typical of the whole species or 
group to which it belongs. A hundred individuals of a given 
species collected at random will be alike in certain character- 
istics, but will vary among themselves in many minor ways. 
If then we wanted a specimen that would stand as a fair repre- 
sentative or type of the species, we should pick one that was 
near the average. This is what is meant by a typical indi- 
vidual of a species. When a biologist describes a species, he 
describes what he estimates is a typical individual of that 
species. So whenever a species is thought of, these individual 
differences or variations should be thought of also. Now the 
individuals of any species that are near the type resemble 
each other more closely than they resemble those of any other 
species. In the same way, species which resemble each other 
more closely than they resemble other species are grouped in 
larger divisions called genera. On a like basis genera are 
grouped into families, families into orders, and so on. For 
convenience in study an individual of a species may be taken 
as a type form of a genus or of a family. The student, after 
studying the type in sufhcient detail, can then learn in what 

1 That is, two experiments are run side by side, in which all the conditions 
excepting the one under investigation are as nearly as possible exactly alike. 



The Natural Sciences 489 

important respects the representatives of the related genera or 
families differ from this type, and thus get a relatively large 
amount of information in condensed form. It is obvious that 
this type concept is of immense importance to the student ; 
and the teacher should be at some pains to have it grow up 
naturally in connection with whatever samples of biological 
material the pupils are dealing with. They should get the 
notion not only of a typical plant or animal, but of a typical 
seed, leaf, or other organ of either plant or animal.^ It is 
only by forming type notions through the careful study and 
comparison of a relatively small number of types that any- 
thing Hke a general survey of living forms can be made. 
Biological teaching therefore must perforce be made through 
comparative study of type forms. 

2. The comparative principle. This brings us to the 
next principle of biological study, the development through 
habit formation of a comparative attitude on the part of the 
pupil. Having made himself acquainted with a grasshopper, 
for example, the pupil is led to compare its near relatives, the 
cricket and katydid, with it, so that he knows qualities of 
structure, physiology, habits, and life history which they have 
in common, and also the important ways in which the other 
two differ from the first as a type. Again, making a study of 
the crayfish with regard to structure, physiological processes, 
habits, Hfe history, and so on, he compares the lobster and 
crab with it after the same plan that he pursued with the 
grasshopper and its near relatives. He is then in a position 
to compare. the crayfish as a type of all crustaceans with the 
grasshopper as a type- of all insects, and learn in what ways 
the crustaceans differ from the insects, and why they are 
grouped together as arthropods. He will easily accompHsh 
more and will remember characteristics better, as he goes 
along, if he uses the t5rpe and comparative notions from the 
first. In other words, the cra}/fish will mean more to him 

^ Cf. Lloyd and Bigelow, op. cit., pp. 126 ff. 



490 Principles of Secondary Education 

while he is studying it if he has a clear notion of the grass- 
hopper at the time, and is working with the comparative 
attitude. He will then be looking for the resemblances and 
differences ; and hence every characteristic of structure, 
function, behavior, and life history will mean more to him 
than it would if he had no comparisons in mind. 

3. Classification. The next principle follows quite nat- 
urally from the second. By noting resemblances and dif- 
ferences in the process of comparing types, the pupil arrives 
in a perfectly natural way at the principle of classification 
and gets a first-hand appreciation of its economy and value 
as a means of organizing and rendering intelligible a mxass 
of facts which otherwise handled would be chaotic. 

4. Form and structure as related to function. In form 
and structure, the animal as a whole, and its organs as working 
parts of it, are adapted to the activities in which they engage, 
the functions that they are called upon to perform. No child 
who has tried to capture a grasshopper in the field will have 
the slightest difficulty in grasping the notion that one of 
the grasshopper's necessities is to escape his enemies, that 
his ability to hop quickly, or to fly, enables him to do so, and 
that his legs and wings are admirably adapted to provide 
him with this ability. Here then is one of the countless start- 
ing points for a lesson problem. What is the mechanism of 
the grasshopper's leg that enables him to star in the standing 
broad jump? Why can he jump so much farther in propor- 
tion to his length than the best boy on the track team can 
jump? When this problem of the relation of structure to 
function has been solved, others present themselves in pro- 
fusion. What is the structure of the wings and body, and the 
arrangement of the muscles that enables them all to cooperate 
so efficiently in balancing and flying? How are the mouth 
parts adapted to eating? How is the food digested? How 
does the insect breathe ? Has he a nervous system, and if so 
what is it like ? How is it adapted to the functions that it has 



The Natural Sciences 491 

to perforin? These questions indicate clearly that the right 
method of approach is not to study morphology or physiology 
or ecology separately, but to study them together by working 
out problems on a type. They indicate also that in biology 
as in all the other sciences the joint activity of the teacher and 
pupils in field work, in laboratory work, and in class con- 
ferences is unified in the problems. 

5. Adjustment, division of labor, and cooperation. Life 
involves a continuous process of adjustment to environ- 
ment. If the environment of the organism is simple, the ad- 
justment processes are simple, and few specialized organs are 
found to exist. If the environment is complex or difficult, 
necessitating many adjustments, more parts or organs are 
advantageous, and the organism is found to be complex. There 
is division of labor and specialization of groups of cells adapted 
to perform the various kinds of adjustments both among the 
working internal parts of the living machine and in the organs 
by which it responds to stimuli from without. Thus we have 
the principle of adjustment correlating with the principles of 
cooperation and division of labor on the physiological and eco- 
logical side, and with the principle of adaptation and dif- 
ferentiation of parts on the morphological side. Physiology 
and ecology then present the dynamic phase, and morphology 
(including anatomy, histology, and classification) represents 
the static phase in the study of the same life process, — ad- 
justment. Out of this relation comes the fifth principle in 
biological pedagogy: study structure and function together, 
as related to adjustment, in one type, and compare with analo- 
gous adjustments and the structures and functions related 
thereto in other types. 

6. Continuity of life, — life history and race history. 
Each plant or animal type has a Hfe history. From the union 
of two reproductive cells and the fission of the new cell thus 
formed until the new individual dies, it goes through a cycle 
of changes from a simple to an increasingly complex condition. 



492 Principles of Secondary Education 

Some of the individuals before they die reproduce their kind 
and hand on their progeny to continue the life of the race 
of organisms as a whole. In the history of the races of plants 
and animals some species as species have become extinct and 
others have survived. Just as there is a Kfe history for the 
individual of a species, so for the race there is a succession of 
changes from simple and undifferentiated forms to complex 
and highly speciaKzed forms. These changes constitute a 
race history which can be more or less clearly traced in the 
successive relationships that the later groups bear to the 
earlier. 

7. The theory of evolution. Thus life, which is limited 
in the individual, is continuous in the race, and in the struggle 
for existence those qualities tend in the long run to be handed 
on which have survival value — ■ that is, which help to preserve 
the hves of individuals so that they can live to reproduce their 
kind. So survival is connected with advantageous adjustment 
to environment ; and a process of natural selection goes on. 
By variation and selection the race of organisms becomes ad- 
justed to varying conditions ; and the newer and more complex 
forms result. 

The young student cannot follow all the evidence in favor 
of organic evolution, or go very far into the theories concern- 
ing its various factors, or debate the questions which biological 
specialists have not been able to settle among themselves ; 
but his attention can be called to the most obvious facts and 
relations that point in the direction of progress by variation 
and selection ; and he can thus get a broad notion of the evolu- 
tionary process. The important rule for the teacher is to refrain 
from dogmatizing or quoting authorities in place of citing facts, 
either for or against any statement of theory, and to lead the 
students to maintain an open-minded attitude and get their 
own point of view.^ 

^ Read Professor Lloyd's statement, Lloyd and Bigelow, op. cit., pp. 136 ff., 
and compare it with Professor Bigelow's, p. 286, previously referred to. 



The Nahiral Sciences 493 

GENERAL METHOD IN BIOLOGICAL STUDY. — The 

preceding principles furnish the basis for a general method 
in teaching biology. Start with problems that involve the 
study of a type plant or animal. Study it as a whole, with 
reference to its general form and structure as related to the 
work that it has to do. Note its differentiation into parts 
and the work to which each essential part is adapted. Make 
comparisons showing the clearest analogies in the case of other 
t3^es, carrying the comparisons far enough to give a general 
idea of the plant or animal as a working machine or organism 
with cooperating parts. 

Continue with a similar study of the parts in a somewhat 
more intensive way (but with plants, still paying more at- 
tention to the comparison of similar organs through a some- 
what extensive range of forms than to the intensive study of 
the type as a type). 

After a good general idea of the working organs as organs 
has been gained, concentrate on a more intensive study of the 
type, with reference to its physiology and internal structure, 
and its ecology, behavior, life history, and economic and human 
relations. Proceed with other types in turn in a similar way, 
examining them with reference to their morphology as related 
to physiology and ecology, but with the exception of two or 
three types make the work progressively more extensive and 
less intensive — that is, put increasing stress on comparison 
of types, and on economic and human relations and gradually 
diminishing stress on detailed study of anatomy and physiology. 
Lead up to the classification and evolution concepts. In 
studying the physiological processes compare these processes 
not only in the field of plants or animals, but correlate in plants 
and animals and in human physiology. Make the largest 
possible use of local and hving material and of local human 
and economic relations that is consistent with the broader 
aims of the course. 

SPECIAL METHODS. — The special methods must always 



494 Principles of Secojidary Education 

be worked out by the individual teachers each for his own 
school, and no attempt will be made to outhne them here. 
The best way for a beginner to acquire methods is to master 
the principles and notions of general method, study and com- 
pare the presentations of the various textbooks and laboratory 
guides, study and compare critically the various syllabi with 
reference to local conditions, and read the pedagogical litera- 
ture that is available on the subject.^. Lloyd and Bigelow, 
whose book should be owned and studied by every biology 
teacher, discuss laboratory methods and equipment as well 
as general and special method in botany, zoology, and human 
physiology with sufficient detail to meet the needs even of 
inexperienced teachers. 

CORRELATION OF BOTANY, ZOOLOGY, AND 
PHYSIOLOGY. — For a course of one year in biological study 
there are three plans from which to choose : i . A half year 
of botany, followed by a half year of zoology, closing with 
a brief survey of human physiology ;2 2. A year of botany 
only; 3. A year of zoology only. From the standpoint of 
a well-balanced curriculum for the purposes of general edu- 
cation the writer agrees with a number of leading biologists 
in favoring the first plan. In case the second is adopted he be- 
Keves that sufj&cient botanical details should be excluded from 
the course to give time for frequent comparisons of animals with 

^ Especially Lloyd and Bigelow, op. cit.; the current and many of the back 
numbers of School Science and Mathematics. The Report of the Botanical Society 
of America on Botany in Secondary Schools, in School Review, November, 1908 
(Vol. 16, p. 594). Ganong, W. F., The Teaching Botanist, Macmillan, 1910. 
The Report of the American Society of Zoologists on Zoology for Secondary 
Schools, College Entrance Board, Substation 84, New York, Document 48 ; 
and the Definitions of Units in Botany and Zoology in the Reports of the Com- 
mission on Accredited Schools of the North Central Association of Colleges and 
Secondary Schools, which may be obtained from the Secretary, Principal J. E. 
Armstrong, Englewood High School, Chicago, price twenty-five cents. 

^ For excellent outlines of such a course, worked out in a single textbook, see 
Bailey, L. H., and Coleman, W. M., First Course in Biology, Macmillan, New 
York, 1908 ; Hunter, G. W., Elements of Biology, American Book Co., 1907 ; and 
Bigelow, M. A., and A. '^., Introdiiction to Biology, M&cmi)\.axi,'HQV^ York, 1913. 



The Natural Sciences 495 

plants to make their common physiological resemblances 
and dijfferences clear ; and in case the third plan is adopted 
he believes that a similar comparative use of botanical material 
should be made ; and that in any of the three plans the 
broader correlations of plant, animal, and human physiology 
should be made at every point where they will be clear and 
illuminating. 

PEYSICS 

COMMON-SENSE NOTIONS, AND PHYSICAL PRIN- 
CIPLES. — In his Science oj Mechanics ^ Mach has shown that 
the early discoveries of mechanical laws and principles grew 
out of thinking that was aroused by problematic situations 
in which there seemed to be some incongruity between ob- 
served physical facts and the intuitive or common-sense 
notions about them which crystallize, so to speak, out of the 
manifold experiences of the individual and the race in dealing 
with the materials .and tools of the industries. Physical 
principles, such as that of the lever and that of flotation in 
mechanics, that of the distribution of heat by convection 
currents, that of the equality of the angles of incidence and 
reflection for light, or Ohm's law of flow for electric currents, 
are merely concise and convenient ways of describing events 
that persistently recur under certain circumstances. As 
Mach points out,^ such a "law" or "principle" is an econom- 
ical device of thought, which enables us to keep in mind by 
means of a single statement or formula a multitude of single 
occurrences that are alike in certain essential qualities or 
relations, although widely separated perhaps in both time 
and space. The principle states the relation that these single 

^ Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 1907, loc. cit., pp. 1-7, also 77-85. 
(The word "intuitive " is preferable to the word "instinctive" used in the Eng- 
lish translation of Mach's book. Instinctive is probably intended only in a figura- 
tive sense ; but it is psychologically misleading in the connection used. An in- 
stinctive reaction is one that is unlearned; an intuitive one is learned, but 
untaught. This evidently is what Mach meant.) 

2 Op. cit., pp. 481 ff. 



49^ Principles of Secondary Education 

occurrences have in common. Those who have discovered 
such generalizations, as Mach shows/ have often used their 
intuitive notions, derived from familiar experiences, as guides 
in their thinking. So it is with us all, with children no less 
than with adults. New experiences which do not conflict 
with our intuitive knowledge, or common sense as we are wont 
to call it, are taken as matters of course, and do not arouse 
any feeling of doubt or incongruity. Understanding of prin- 
ciples grows by checking up new particular cases that are 
found to come under them, with the aid of these intuitions as 
guides. By this trying-out process both the principles and 
the guiding intuitions are clarified and made more precise 
and meaningful. One gets ultimately "a comprehensive, 
compact, consistent, and facile conception of the facts." ^ 

Intuitions and the Facts of Everyday Life as Starting 
Points. — It is very important that the teacher, at 
the outset, recognize this function of intuitions and also 
that he keep in mind the close interplay of science 
and the industries, and so start his teaching of physical 
principles with problematic concrete situations in which the 
pupil senses a difficulty, or an incongruity with his intuitive 
experiential knowledge. Such a situation — one that in- 
volves a strange or novel element among the familiar occur- 
rences of daily observation, and therefore piques the pupil's 
curiosity and arouses his interest — is the only kind of situa- 
tion in which he will think. There is a vast difference, from 
the psychological and educational standpoint, between think- 
ing and merely trying to recall dogmatic statements from the 
textbook. In the former case the pupil is acquiring meanings, 
learning to reflect, and learning to reason ; while in the latter 
he is forming short-circuit memory bonds that cannot, ex- 

1 Op. cit., pp. 26 fE. Every teacher of physics should read the entire chapter, 
especially Section V. The chapter, for the most part, is not easy reading, but it 
affords an outlook that is well worth the trouble required to gain it. 

2 Mach, op. cit., p. 5. 



The Natural Sciences 497 

cepting by mere chance, function in real situations outside 
the schoolroom. 

Such short-circuit memory connections furnish one explana- 
tion for the condition so often described by teachers when 
they complain that pupils " know the principle, but cannot 
apply it." In such cases it is obvious that they do not 
know the principle. The only association bond existing in 
their brain cells is the bond between the situation of being 
asked the question, " State (say) Pascal's law of fluid pres- 
sure " on the stimulus side, and recalling the sequence of 
words, " The pressure in a fluid in a closed vessel is trans- 
mitted . . . etc.," on the response side. The necessary asso- 
ciation bonds have not been formed between the idea of 
undiminished transmission of fluid pressure, on the one hand, 
and a lot of concrete cases, on the other hand. 

Such bonds can be formed in most cases only by a consid- 
erable number of concrete mental and motor experiences 
with fluids whose behavior under transmitted pressure has 
been intelligently and thoughtfully observed and measured in 
some way. Pupils cannot be railroaded into a knowledge of 
physical principles. Real knowledge of a law or principle, — 
that is, facility or skill in using it, can be gained only by 
practice in dealing with problematic situations in which it 
is involved. Thus, if the pupil has gained such experience by 
measuring, with a pressure gauge, the pressure at several water 
taps which are located on the same floor of a building and 
which come from pipes that have various diameters and that 
turn and twist in various directions, and if he has made similar 
measurements on one or two other floors, he will have little 
difficulty in grasping the idea and connecting it in the class 
conferences with similar cases elsewhere. By such a process 
a clear and meaningful concept of fluid pressure can be built 
up in his mind. 

Words, definitions, statements of laws and principles, alge- 
braic formulae, are mere symbols. They are indispensable in 



49^ Principles of Secondary Education 

science for economy in thought; but they are almost abso- 
lutely useless to any individual unless he himself has a clear 
and precise notion or concept of the things or relations for 
which each symbol stands. A thorough and intelligent appre- 
ciation of this fundamental psychological principle is abso- 
lutely essential for real success in teaching anything ; but it is 
more likely to be fatally overlooked by teachers of physics 
and chemistry than by teachers of some other subjects, be- 
cause of the highly symbolic, condensed, and technical lan- 
guage in which these sciences are set forth in the treatises. 
The very excellence of logical organization to which these fas- 
cinating sciences have attained is on the one hand a source of 
the gravest danger to all attempts to teach them to young peo- 
ple, and on the other hand, if rightly used, a means of the high- 
est value in forming habits of logical thinking. 

Some Intuitive Notions Described. — ■ What are the 
common-sense notions or intuitive judgments that con- 
stitute so important a part of the mental raw materials with 
which the physics teacher must begin? We know no logical 
order in which to name them; and, as Mach shows,^ it is 
useless to try to ascribe either priority or higher authority 
to one of them in preference to another; for they are all as 
it were sui generis, each being derived from a fund of experiences 
which is as worthy of confidence as any other. Hence the 
order in which they are here set down is not significant. 
Neither is it claimed that the enumeration is complete. It is 
intended only to be suggestive. 

I. The continuity of nature, the notion that things that 
have always been so will always be so under similar condi- 
tions.^ In the teaching, the examination of conditions is 
the process on which a great part of any given problem 
turns. 

^ Loc. cit., pp. 80 £f. 

2 Cf. Mann, C. R., and Twiss, G. R., Physics. Scott, Foresman & Co., 
Chicago, 19 10, p. 17. 



The Natttral Sciences 499 

2. The causal notion/ the intuitive habit of connecting 
in thought two things that always go together, either in se- 
quence or simultaneously, and of looking for a similar relation 
which intelligibly connects a strange thing or event with things 
or events that are familiarly known. This intuitive tendency 
finds an outlet in the ubiquitous question of the young child, 
'' Mother, what makes it do that? " The teacher who can 
revive and foster this naive desire of the children to know the 
why of things — a desire which is imiversally crashed by our 
conventional social and educational procedure in dealing with 
it — may know by this token that his methods in so far forth 
are right methods. 

3. The notion of balancing, and of a connection of balancing 
with symmetry about the point or line of support. Here is 
a guiding intuition for all problems about center of gravity, 
equilibrium, stability, levers, and so on. Every child who has 
played with a seesaw, played store with toy scales, balanced 
his body, " trimmed " a boat, carried packages in two hands, 
and the like, knows something about these problems and will 
be keen to know more, if his interest is not stifled by making 
him begin with reciting a book lesson about gravity or the law 
of the lever. 

4. The notion of force, derived from the sensations of 
muscular exertion in pushing and pulling things with the 
hands, striking balls with bats, chopping with hatchets, driving 
nails and pegs with hammers and stones, supporting weights, 
and the like. This notion again is usually clear enough in 
the pupil's mind if instead of being asked to define force he is 
asked how it can be measured. 

5. The notion of work, derived from lifting weights, push- 
ing and dragging things against resistance, and so on. This 
notion, again, is made clear not by defining it metaphysically ; 

1 For a complete but simple discussion of the logical and scientific uses of this 
notion, see Jones, A. L., Logic, Inductive and Deductive. Henry Holt & Co., 
New York, 1909, pp. 79-109. Cf. also Mach, op. cit., pp. 483-485 and 579, 



500 Principles of Secondary Educatioii 

but by showing in many cases that work can be measured 
by the numerical product, pounds force multipHed by 
distance.^ 

6. The notion of inertia, derived from running and dodg- 
ing, from starting and stopping massive bodies, riding in 
vehicles. 

7. The correlative idea of mass, expressed in the common 
saying that " large bodies move slowly." This idea is usually 
confused with that of weight ; and some care and a good deal 
of time and regulated experience in making the proper dis- 
tinctions are needed to clear it up. Much of the difhculty 
here will be avoided if the teacher always makes the distinction 
correctly in his own speech and does not insist on having the 
pupils understand and make it before they have had sufficient 
experience with the phenomena in which mass and weight can 
be differentiated. 

8. The impossibility of a perpetual motion against a resist- 
ance, derived from the continuous exertion required to keep 
bodies moving and their tendency to stop when the urging 
force is relaxed, and from observation of swinging bodies 
which never rise to higher levels than those from which they 
started. This intuition is commonly expressed in the saying 
that "water never rises higher than its source," or that, "you 
cannot get more work out of a machine than you put into it." 
The interest of many boys in suggested conflicts with this 
intuitive notion is striking. They will often think hard and 
argue keenly with one another in an endeavor to find the 
fallacies that lurk in such perpetual-motion propositions. 

The Questions of Tyndall's Boys. — In a lecture on 

1 Cf. Mann, C. R., The Teaching of Physics. The Macmillan Co., New- 
York, 191 2, pp. 225-233. No teacher of physics, experienced or otherwise, 
can ailord not to read this book, and reflect on the vital questions respecting 
physics teaching that are discussed therein. It has the almost unique advantage 
among books on science teaching of being written from the standpoint of modern 
psychology and is free from the taint of the discredited faculty and formal 
discipline psychology. 



The Natural Sciences 501 

Physics as a means of Education ^ Tyndall gives a few 
questions selected at random from among those asked by 
his boys, students at an agricultural school in Hampshire. 
These questions were asked and discussed by the boys and 
their teachers at the meetings of a scientific club that they 
had formed. There were all sorts of questions, most of them 
asking for the causes of things. They exhibit the spirit of 
wonder that is so important for the science teacher to foster ; 
and a few of them are just such problems as best serve for 
starting points from which to arrive at important physical 
principles. 

What are the duties of the Astronomer Royal? What is 
frost ? Why are thunder and lightning more frequent in sum- 
mer than in winter? What occasions falling stars? What 
is the cause of the sensation of " pins and needles "? What 
is the cause of waterspouts? What is the cause of hiccup? 
If a towel be wetted with water, why does the wet portion be- 
come darker than before? What is meant by Lancashire 
witches? Does the dew rise or fall? What is the principle 
of the hydraulic press? Is there more oxygen in the air 
in summer than in winter ? What are those rings that we see 
around the gas and the sun? What is thunder? How is it 
(sic) that a black hat can be moved by forming around it 
a magnetic circle, while a white hat remains stationary ? ^ 
What is the cause of perspiration ? Is it true that men were 

^ In Cidture Demanded by Modern Life, edited by E. L. Youmans, Appleton, 
New York, 1875, pp. 59-85. Science teachers who have not read this eloquent 
and inspiring presentation of the culture value of science, by probably the most 
gifted teacher of physics that ever lived, should do so. The same volume con- 
tains a lecture by Liebig on "The Development of Scientific Ideas, " which shows 
the close natural connection between science and the industries. 

2 This might have been some conjuring trick or a mere superstitious tradition ; 
but it would seem unlikely that such a teacher as Tyndall would neglect the 
opportunity to incite the boys to find out in this case the relative merits of 
credulity and knowledge by putting this question to the test of experiment. 
Cf. Hall, G. Stanley, Adolescence,\o\. II, p. 157, wherein the author calls atten- 
tion to the neglected field of scientific toys and conjuring tricks as sources of 
problems possessing strong motivating power for study of the principles of 
physics. 



502 Principles of Secondary Education 

once monkeys ? What is the difference between the soul and 
the mind ? ^ Is it contrary to the rules of vegetarianism to eat 
eggs? 

These are but a few of the many that were asked ; but 
they suggest countless nodes of interest from which problems 
may be made to bud out at the command of a sympathetic and 
resourceful teacher. Tyndall then selects the questions of 
the wetted towel, and the deposition of dew, and in his truly 
wonderful way shows how they can be explained by means of 
a few simple physical principles. The following quotation will 
suggest the way in which such principles were led up to and 
enforced through some problems that enabled his boys to 
apply their knowledge of arithmetic and geometry, not to 
" recite " for the teacher, but to find out something that they 
were keen to know. The class he describes was supposed to 
be studying geometry ; but it is evident that no water-tight 
bulkheads existed between mathematics and science for such 
a teacher as Tjmdall. The selection also exemplifies that 
infectious enthusiasm that is indispensable to successful science 
teaching. 

"It was often my custom to give the boys their choice of 
pursuing their propositions in the book, or of trying their 
strength on others not to be found there. Never in a single 
instance have I known the book to be chosen. . . . 

"And then again, the pleasure we all experienced was 
enhanced when we applied our mathematical knowledge to the 
solution of physical problems. Many objects of hourly con- 
tact had thus a new interest and significance imparted to them. 
The swing, the seesaw, the tension of the giant-stride ropes, 
the fall and rebound of the football, the advantage of a small 
boy over a large one when turning short, particularly in slip- 
pery weather ; all became subjects of investigation. Sup- 
posing a lady to stand before a looking-glass, of the same 

1 This is a poser, but is instructive as showing the range of questions over 
which some children ponder. 



The Natural Sciences 503 

height as herself, it was required to know how much of the 
glass was really useful to the lady ? and we learned, with great 
pleasure, the economic fact that she might dispense with the 
lower half and see her whole figure notwithstanding. We also 
felt deep interest in ascertaining from the hum of a bee the 
number of times the little insect flaps its wings in a second." ^ 

ECONOMY OF TIME AND EFFORT. — It is often ob- 
jected that the problem approach requires too much time, — 
that there is so much ground to be covered that conditions 
will not admit of it. But of what use is covering the ground 
by a cramming process which leaves the pupils with confused 
and detached ideas, and a distaste for the subject? On the 
other hand, a reorganization of the subject matter about the 
larger and more general principles, and the exclusion of topics 
that are either too difficult for pupils to comprehend, or are 
lacking in significance to them because of not making intelli- 
gible connections with their experiences, makes it possible 
to save much time. Everybody admits that the cutrent text- 
books are overloaded ; then why try to have the pupils 
swallow them whole ? ^ Let us see what can be done by better 
organization. Instead of having the pupils learn as discrete 
ideas a separate law for each of the simple machines, including 
three different classes of levers, all these machines can be 
shown to come under two general statements. The principle 
of moments and the work principle, i.e. neglecting friction, 
the work got out of the machine equals the work put into it ; 
and by a very elementary and obvious algebraic substitution 
any case coming under the former principle can be brought 
under the latter. Out of the work principle directly we get 
the efficiency equation also. So one single principle, or two 
at most, covers all these cases or any others similar to them. 

1 Youmans, op. cit., pp. 80 ff. 

2 Each author during the last twenty years has had to include all the topics 
covered by his predecessors and add a few more in order that his publishers' 
agents might meet the "talking points" of their competitors. For the manifest 
absurdity of the result, see Mann, op. cit., p. 208. 



504 Principles of Secondary Education 

To this principle add that of the parallelogram of motions, 
Newton's third law, and clarified statements of the intuitive 
notions of gravity, inertia, mass, and uniform speed, and 
you have practically all the principles under mechanics of 
solids that it is worth while trying to teach pupils of high 
school age. All the other details will be more easily remem- 
bered because associated with these few principles, well under- 
stood, instead of being scattered in many discrete groups.^ 

In a similar way, each one of the less comprehensive principles 
of heat, electricity, sound, and light may be approached through 
simple, interesting problems, some qualitative and more of 
them quantitative, all of them starting with knowledge that 
the pupils already possess and proceeding by consecutive steps 
of experimentation and reasoning toward the goal. Like 
those of mechanics, these in turn can be shown to be compre- 
hended by a few larger and more inclusive principles which 
make up the theoretical framework of the whole subject. 

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS. — Thus we have the few 
fundamental concepts of physics, time and space, mass and 
inertia, electricity and ether, all related to one another and made 
apparent through the transformations and transferences of 
energy that take place in connection with phenomena that 
are described by them. So also we have the great compre- 
hensive principles of action and reaction, of the conservation 
of energy, of the degradation of energy, and of relativity which 
serve to sum up and connect all the facts and phenomena which 
the beginner in physical science can successfully examine 
and fairly master. The molecular and electron theories may 
perhaps be given at the end of the course, but are not needed 
for the effective organization of the most important and sig- 
nificant facts. The earlier introduction of these theories will 
certainly serve only to confuse the pupils and draw them away 

1 To see how this reorganization has been effected in a plan that is working 
successfully in many schools, examine the first three chapters of Mann and Twiss, 
op. cit., pp. 17-67. 



The Natural Sciences 505 

from the safe and firm ground of facts that they can grasp 
through first-hand observation and experimentation into what, 
at least for them, must remain a treacherous atmosphere of 
speculation.^ 

SYLLABI. — To those teachers who are in such circum- 
stances that they must conform to the content of the syllabi 
of the College Entrance Examination Board or those of state 
authorities, it may be said that the plan of organization and 
teaching here outKned can be followed under these syllabi 
if careful attention is given to relative emphasis on the various 
items that the syllabi call for. None of their makers ever 
intended that the syllabi should be followed slavishly as to 
order' of topics or that the same emphasis should be placed on 
every item. Even if this really had to be done, better results 
could be obtained by devoting the bulk of the year to real 
teaching after the manner here described, and devoting three 
or four weeks at the end of the course to a " cramming" re- 
view for the examinations. 

LABORATORY WORK. —The method for physics out- 
Hned in this chapter will not necessitate discarding immediately 
the laboratory equipment that the school has on hand. A 
number of the experiments usually made in the laboratory 
are lacking in significance and are not worth the time that is 
spent on them ; but the greater part of them may be made 
valuable if they are presented in a better way. For example, 
take one of those on specific gravity. Approached in the 
customary way, the purpose of the experiment is usually 
stated as follows, " To find the specific gravity of a solid that 
sinks in water." Stated thus, it has no significance. There 
is no motive. Why should the student care to find the specific 
gravity of " a soKd " that he is not going to do anything with? 
Suppose, on the other hand, we raise the question as to how 

^ For suggestions as to a detailed elaboration of such a course as has been 
indicated, see the chapters on the various divisions of the subject in the Mann 
and Twiss Physics and read Mann's Teaching of Physics, Part III. 



5o6 Principles of Secondary Education 

much work will be required to lift a large block of stone to 
its position in a neighboring building under construction. The 
answer, of course, can be obtained by multiplying the weight 
by the height to which it is to be lifted ; but how are we to 
find the weight? A little questioning will usually elicit from 
the pupils the suggestion that the dimensions can easily be 
measured and the volume calculated. Then if we knew the 
weight of a unit of volume of the stone, we could multiply this 
by the total volume and get the weight of the block, also the 
weight for unit volume of the stone can be found by determin- 
ing the specific gravity of a sample of it. Again, suppose that 
instead of assigning an experiment '' to determine the specific 
gravity of a liquid " the teacher proposes that the pupils 
find out whether the milk that they are receiving at their 
homes has been watered. There will then be a real motive 
for finding the specific gravity of the milk and for making 
a hydrometer which they can use for that purpose at home.^ 
Other changes in attitude of the same sort can easily be made 
by every teacher for himself. Thus pupils need no longer 
make an experiment " to find the electrical resistance of 
a wire," but can find out " whether a tungsten lamp if sub- 
stituted for a carbon lamp will save more than its increased 
cost," and so on. Under this sort of teaching, the laboratory 
experiment, instead of being abstract, formal, and meaningless 
to the pupils, becomes a necessary step in the solution of a live 
human problem that the pupils have some real, sane reason 
for desiring to solve. 

THE PROGRESSIVE PROGRAM. — (i) The content of 
the modern physics course is not objectionable in itself, but 
is too bulky and needs to be cut down. 

(2) We must drop out the highly abstract and theoretical, 
the incidental and insignificant. Whatever is entirely foreign 
to the pupils' present purposes, present knowledge, and daily 

^ For such an experiment see Twiss, G. R., Laboratory Exercises in Physics. 
Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago, 1906, p. 88. 



The Natural Sciences 507 

experiences, and cannot be connected up with it through sig- 
nificant problems in whose answers they can be vitally 
interested, should be eliminated. 

(3) There must be a change in emphasis that will result in 
paying most attention to the " big dynamic things " ^ in 
physics, and to those facts and minor principles which have 
a human bearing, which are exemplified in the pupil's own 
locality, and which are therefore significant because they raise 
questions in whose answers the pupils can see some use. 

(4) Minor and special principles and definitions must be 
justified before the pupils are required to learn them. This 
can be. done only by putting the pupils in situations where 
the need for these definitions or principles is apparent in con- 
nection with the work they are doing. In other words, defi- 
nitions, principles, and generalizations are justified by lead- 
ing up to them inductively through concrete problems that 
arise out of the pupil's previous knowledge and their spirit 
of wonder or intellectual curiosity. 

(5) There should be a constant grouping of similar phenom- 
ena under the definitions or laws or principles which describe 
them ; and a continuous process of organization, showing 
how each group of phenomena takes its place with other groups 
under a broader principle or generalization, thus building up 
the content of the science in the pupils' minds as a unified and 
classified whole. This means a reorganization of the courses 
usually given, and an entire change in the mode of approach 
so as to arrive at the abstract and general by the way of the 
concrete and particular, instead of vice versa. 

(6) The teacher should neglect no opportunity that will 
enable him to aid the pupils in forming association bonds 
between the physical ideas acquired in the schoolroom and 
the various kinds of problems of everyday life which those 
principles assist in solving. In other words let them learn 
to apply their physical knowledge by practice in applying it. 

1 Cf. Mann, op. cit., Chap. X. 



5o8 Principles of Secojidary Educatioii 

If these principles are applied in the teaching, lack of in- 
terest in the subject will be rare ; and the outcome is almost 
certain to be satisfactory. 

CEEMISTRY 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. — Chemistry is par ex- 
cellence the experimental science, inasmuch as little chemical 
knowledge of consequence can be learned without making 
experiments. Observation here plays fully as important a 
role as in the other sciences ; bui very little can be observed 
of the chemistry of substances V^ljiout first doing something 
with them. Thus, chemical experiments appeal directly to 
a fundamental instinct. " To do something and have some- 
thing happen as the consequence is, other things being equal, 
instinctively satisfying, whatever be done and whatever be 
the consequent happening." ^ This is fortunate for the psy- 
chological teaching of chemistry, because perception of its 
facts and acquisition of its concepts are not favored so highly 
as in the other sciences by familiar experiences and common- 
sense intuitions, in terms of which the facts and relations that 
are presented in the teaching can be interpreted ; and it is 
therefore not so easy to make obvious connections between 
chemical lore and everyday-life situations as it is to make such 
connections in presenting the other sciences. But although 
the chemistry teacher is thus at a disadvantage, he has strong 
allies in the original tendencies to manipulate ^ and experiment. 
In the case of chemistry, then, if we are to start our teaching 
with a problem growing out of the child's experience, we must 
let him get the necessary experience by making chemical 
experiments himself, and in the beginning depend for motiva- 
tion largely on his original tendencies toward manipulation 
and toward " doing things to have something happen," plus 

^ Thorndike, E. L., The Original Nature of Man. Teachers College, Columbia 
University, New York, 1913, p. 142. 
''■Ibid., pp. 135-138. 



The Nahiral Sciences 509 

whatever liking for purposeful experimentation he may have 
been fortunate enough to have acquired through previous 
scientific training in school or out. 

If this be true, then two conclusions follow, which might 
indeed have been inferred from common-sense considerations, 
apart from psychology, namely : (i) it is of little avail to 
attempt to teach chemistry without a large amount of in- 
dividual laboratory experimentation, and (2) the very first 
lesson, and every succeeding lesson in which a new topic is 
taken up, should be an experimental problem in which the 
pupil himself is the experimenter, guided and assisted, of 
course, by the teacher. 

HOW TO BEGIN. — Many teachers and many textbooks 
make the traditional mistake of beginning with general ob- 
servations about chemistry, its value, and its relations to the 
other sciences, with definitions of physical and chemical 
changes, of elements, compounds, and mixtures, and even of 
atoms and molecules. This is not only productive of gross 
waste of time, but tends also to form the habit in the pupils 
of depending for their facts on books and authority instead 
of forming in them the habit of making their own judgments 
on the basis of what the facts themselves have to reveal to 
them through their senses. To create such an attitude at the 
start is fatal to the scientific spirit which it is the mission of 
science teaching to engender. Furthermore, it is of course 
impossible for pupils to form any conception of the meaning 
of a generalization or definition unless they have become ac- 
quainted through first-hand experience with a considerable 
number of the specific facts of which it is a general or con- 
densed statement. The wise teacher then will seek at once 
for some problems that can be solved only by experiments 
simple enough for the pupils themselves to carry out, and 
that at the same time lead straight toward some of the 
important facts and principles of chemistry. A number of 
these can be found which lead directly to the preparation 



5IO Principles of Secondary Education 

of oxygen, and which grow naturally out of common ex- 
perience. 

For example, why is iron always nickel plated, or covered 
with paint ? If rusting is not at once suggested, let the teacher 
then show some specimens of badly rusted iron ; and if the 
students think they have solved the problem when they have 
said that the nickel plating or painting is to keep the iron from 
rusting, let him ask them why. If they answer that the cover- 
ing keeps the air away from the iron, let him ask them why they 
think the air has anything to do with it. If they are sharp 
enough to answer this question logically, let him ask them how 
the air causes the iron to rust. Here their experiential 
knowledge will stop unless, perchance, some one suggests that 
iron does not rust in a dry attic but does rust in a moist cellar. 
Obviously, the next question is, " If the rusting of the iron is 
connected with the presence of moist air, does the iron take 
something from the air to make the new substance, rust ; 
or does the air take something from the iron ? ^ The answer 
can be obtained by inverting in a dish of water a test tube 
into which some moist powdered iron has been introduced so 
as to stick to its walls near its closed end. The iron soon rusts, 
and water rises and occupies about a fifth of the volume of 
the tube, when the action stops, leaving some of the iron 
unrusted. The obvious inference is that the iron takes away 
one fifth of the air, and that when it has done so, that portion 
of the air which was capable of taking part in the rusting 
process was used up, so no more iron was rusted. If the tube 
be removed and a lighted taper plunged into it, the flame is 
extinguished, showing that the part of the air used up was 
that part which supports combustion. Powdered iron in 

^ For the detailed procedure in solving this problem so as to get to the bottom 
of it, see Smith, A., and Hall, E. H., The Teaching of Chemistry and Physics. 
Longmans, New York, 1904, pp. 107 ff. The Chemistry section of this book 
should be read and reread by every teacher of chemistry. It is the soundest, 
most thorough, and most helpful discussion of the pedagogy of chemistry 
that is known to the writer. 



The Natural Sciences 511 

a watch glass counterpoised on a balance and left in a moist 
atmosphere gradually rusts and is seen to increase in weight. 
Thus it is proved conclusively that something from the moist 
air is added to the iron to make it rust. These experiments 
may be followed by heating weighed mercury, tin, and lead in 
porcelain crucibles, noting the respective changes in prop- 
erties and the increases in weight. The early historical knowl- 
edge of these changes can then be recounted, oxygen pre- 
pared from mercuric oxide, like that obtained by heating, and 
the experiments of Priestley and Lavoisier explained. The 
pupils will then be keen to prepare oxygen in larger amounts 
from potassium chlorate and " do things with it to find out 
what will happen." In this way their memory bonds between 
oxygen and its properties will be formed and may be firmly 
established by later reviews and drills. Also they are more 
likely to catch the scientific spirit than if they began with 
definitions and formal experiments '' to illustrate and make 
clear " the difference between physical and chemical changes, 
and the difference between compounds and mixtures. 

The teacher who knows how to work experiments for all 
they are worth will bring these differences out clearly in con- 
nection with the experiments described ; and if so brought out, 
they will be better remembered because learned in connection 
with problems that can be seen to lead to some significant goal. 
The advantage lies in the mental attitude of the pupil. The 
formal and didactic approach tends to make him lean on the 
crutch of authority, while the problem approach tends toward 
the open-minded scientific attitude and the desire to know 
and prove truth for its social utility. The experiments sug- 
gested are by no means the only mode of problem approach. 
Oxygen can be led up to in connection with building fires, 
the burning of candles,^ lamps, and Bunsen burners, putting 

1 For suggestions see Faraday, Michael, The Chemical History of a Candle. 
Harpers, New York, 1899. This classic example of lecture presentation of 
chemical facts and principles to youngsters should be read by every teacher of 
chemistry. 



512 Principles of Secondary Education 

out fires, respiration, the useful properties and constitution of 
water, and so on.^ 

HOW TO USE THE TEXTBOOK. — Many of the mod- 
ern textbooks of chemistry, though excellent in other charac- 
teristics, do not present the facts in an order that suggests 
the problem approach. This, however, need not prevent the 
teacher from giving the p'upils the benefits of this method. 
If the teacher remembers the true function of the textbook 
as a reference book for facts that cannot be easily obtained 
by direct experiment either at the demonstration table or by 
the students themselves, and as a guide in the logical organiza- 
tion and review of facts, principles, and theories, he will use 
his ingenuity in devising suitable problematic situations 
through which the different topics can be approached. He 
will not send the pupils to the book beforehand to find out 
from the printed page what they should find out with their 
own eyes, noses, and hands. It is wrong to suppose that in 
the early stages of scientific study time can be saved by 
learning facts from books. The pupil does not learn the facts 
thus. He merely learns words and formulae which for him 
can have no content because he lacks the experiential knowl- 
edge which alone can enable him to apperceive them.^ Later 
on, after he has accumulated a considerable amount of facts 
through first-hand experience, has perceived their relations, 
and has formulated these relations, largely for himself, in the 
form of laws, principles, and generalizations, he is in a position 
to use chemical books, articles, and' reports with the right 
attitude ; and it is then safe to assign book lessons and ref- 

^ For an approach through an experiment to detect cotton in alleged woolen 
cloth and leading inductivelj^ to certain fundamental distinctions of chemical 
science, see Smith, Alexander, Elementary Chemistry, The Century Co., New 
York, 1914. The entire method of this intensely modern text ought to be given 
serious study by teachers. 

2 Cf. Thorndike, E. L., The Principles of Teaching, A. G. Seiler, New York, 
1906, pp. 42 ff., and Bagley, W. C, The Educative Process, Macmillan, New 
York, 1907, Chap. V, or James, William, Talks to Teachers of Psychology, Holt, 
New York, 1905, Chap. XIV. 



The Nat2iral Sciences 513 

erences to such articles and reports. The teacher, however, 
can never be too careful in hammering in the notion that every 
one of the chemical facts that is to be learned from a book 
is simply a statement of results attained by experiment, 
observation, and measurement or by reasoning founded 
thereon. 

THE CONTENT OF CHEMISTRY. — Like other scientific 
subject matter, chemical information consists of facts, laws, 
hypotheses, and theories and their history ; and this body of 
information has been built up and is being extended by the 
use of the scientific method. Like the other sciences, chemistry 
has its own peculiar special methods of procedure which are 
found to be most expedient in the solution of chemicalproblems. 
The facts, of course, are first and fundamental. The laws are 
merely convenient condensed statements under which like 
facts and like relations between groups of facts are summed up. 
The hypotheses and theories are merely convenient ways of 
describing the facts by conceiving them to be like facts with 
which we are more intimately acquainted. 

Since the laws and theories, if they are thoroughly under- 
stood, are very helpful for economizing time in memorizing 
facts and recalhng them when needed, it is very important 
that the student should know the laws and theories that he is 
capable of comprehending. But he cannot comprehend the 
laws and theories, and therefore they cannot be helpful to 
him, unless he first knows the facts or at least a consider- 
able portion of the facts which the laws summarize or the 
theories explain. Hence the following rules are very important 
for the teacher of chemistry : 

1. Begin with the facts of observation and experiment and 
stick to such facts throughout the course. 

2. Withhold laws until a sufficient number of the facts and 
relations that are specific cases of the law have been studied 
and have become familiar. The law can then be appreciated 
as a device for the economy of thought. 



514 Principles of Secondary Education 

3. When a law has once been presented, have the pupils 
connect the statement of the law with every new specific case 
that comes under it, until they habitually do this for themselves. 

4. Withhold theories until they are needed to furnish ex- 
planations of observed facts. Do not be in such a hurry to 
teach theories that the facts are subordinated to them. Laws 
and theories are man-made devices for describing facts. Facts 
are not to be degraded into illustrations or examples of the 
operation of laws and theories. Laws and theories do not 
" operate." They merely say what in general goes on under 
certain conditions. If at any time the facts shall be found 
with certainty not to agree with them, then they must be al- 
tered to fit the facts as the facts are. 

5. If the students fail to understand a law or theory when 
it is presented, do not insist on their memorizing it so they can 
repeat it glibly at once. Give them time and more experience 
with concrete cases, and after a while they will have learned it. 
They will be all too ready to substitute the memory of a few 
words for knowledge of facts unless they are made to form 
the contrary habit. Generalizations are of supreme importance 
if the facts that they resume are comprehended and can be 
recalled and used with their aid ; otherwise they are useless. 

6. Laws and theories therefore should be introduced gradu- 
ally as the course proceeds, and the more difficult conceptions 
should come near the end of the course. This principle is 
recognized in greater or less degree in most elementary texts ; 
and in many of them the highly theoretical matters — such 
as the making of formulae : Avogadro's law, the atomic and 
molecular theories, valency, ionization — are placed in chap- 
ters by themselves so that they can be deferred or omitted 
altogether, according to the judgment of the teacher. In all 
cases when they are taught these theoretical matters should be 
led up to through quantitative demonstrations or descriptions, 
and copious illustration. Whenever chemical theories serve 
to muddle and disgust the pupils instead of interesting them 



The Nahtral Sciences 515 

and clarifying their ideas, such a result is proof either that the 
conceptions are beyond the pupils' abilities or that the teach- 
ing is inefficient, or both.^ 

7. The laws of chemistry should always be expressed in 
such language as clearly to imply that they are statements 
of the results of experiments. Thus for the law of definite 
proportions, " Every sample of any compound substance is 
always found to contain the same constituent elements in the 
same proportions by weight." ^ 

Chemical Laws. — The law of definite proportions, the law of 
the conservation of mass, and Gay-Lussac's law of volumes are 
among the most important generaHzations of chemistry ; and 
fortunately they are not difficult for high school pupils to com- 
prehend if they are carefully approached. The law of simple 
multiple proportions can usually be taught successfull}^, but 
is not especially important to beginners, and may be omitted 
with Httle loss. The law of combining weights, which is a 
more general statement of the two preceding, is important, but 
probably too difficult and doubtless should not be attempted. 

The use of the physical laws of Boyle and Charles and the 
law of vapor pressure in correcting measured gas volumes 
usually proves to be difficult for high school students ; but 
the difficulties can be overcome if the teacher carefully ex- 
plains and illustrates the behavior of gases which they describe, 
and does so in direct connection with the actual measurement 
of the gases at the demonstration table. Often, the diffi- 
culties arise because the teacher assumes that the pupils know 
these laws from their previous study of physics. He perhaps 
overlooks the fact that in the lapse of nearly a year they will 
almost certainly have forgotten how to apply them. Other 

^ For a full discussion of this question of chemical theory, read Smith and Hall, 
op. cit., pp. 69-84, and also Schoch, E. P., Chemistry in High Schools, Bull. 
Univ. of Texas, No. 210, Official Series 64, Austin, Tex., December, i9ii,pp. 
44-60 passim. See also the theoretical chapters of Professor Smith's Elementary 
Chemistry and compare those in other texts. 

2 Smith, A., op. cit. p. 21. 



5i6 Principles of Secondary Education 

difficulties arise from the elevation of these problems of the 
correction of measured gas volumes into ends instead of 
means. 

Type Reactions. — It is wise to develop strongly the type 
notion in chemistry and to show at every opportunity that 
the reactions encountered are types of many others that are 
like them. Thus instead of having the pupils learn that 
oxygen can be obtained from mercuric oxide or potassium 
chlorate by heating, a fine opportunity for the appreciation 
of science as economy of thought will be missed unless the 
teacher shows in connection with the experiment that many 
other compounds of oxygen, such as Ba02, Pb02, KNO2, 
Mn02, break down in a similar manner when raised to high 
temperatures, and give up all or part of their oxygen. Thus 
the behavior of HgO or KCIO3 is typical of the other reactions 
shown. So when hydrogen is obtained by displacing it from 
hydrochloric acid by zinc, the reactions of other non-oxidizing 
acids with zinc and other metals should be shown and ex- 
plained. This reaction then no longer remains a " method 
of making hydrogen," but in addition becomes a type of the 
general behavior of non-oxidizing acids with metals that 
stand above hydrogen in the list of the elements, when the 
latter are arranged in the order of their electrochemical 
activities. 

If the teacher forms the habit of emphasizing such groups of 
similar reactions, pointing out their resemblances to one 
chosen as a t)rpe, and concentrating the students' attention 
on the general resemblances and specific differences among 
the reactions of the group, he will find not only that he saves 
time in the end, but that he secures unlooked-for reviews, 
stimulates interest, and forms in the student the valuable 
mental habit of using the type notion to organize and relate 
his chemical concepts. Practice in thus forming generaliza- 
tions that are true onl}^ within certain limits, and carefully 
confining them in thought to those limits, constitutes a 



The Natural Sciences 517 

very valuable part of the mental discipline afforded by- 
science.^ 

Careful attention to the types of reaction would result in 
a much more pedagogical arrangement of the subject matter 
than is found in many texts ; for the simplest types of re- 
actions could be grouped at the beginning of the course and 
the more complicated types near the end. Such an arrange- 
ment would bring in the reactions of combination and de- 
composition, reversible reactions (which belong to both the 
preceding classes), hydration, displacement, and double de- 
composition, approximately in the order named, and leave 
many of those involving oxidation, reduction, and change 
of valence (such as the reactions of nitric acid with the metals) 
until later.2 

Practical Applications. — Though it is not feasible in most 
cases to make the approach to new topics through household 
and industrial applications of chemistry, this may perhaps 
be done occasionally when the reactions involved are suffi- 
ciently simple. The mistake is often made of straining a 
point by beginning with some industrial fact or process with 
which the students are totally unfamiliar and which at the 
same time is so complicated that it presupposes for its com- 
prehension knowledge of chemical principles that have not 
yet been studied. Nothing could be worse pedagogically 
than this. Again the mistake is often made in high school 
courses in so-called " applied " or " industrial " chemistry 
of requiring the pupils to memorize complicated details of 
processes in which no easily perceived applications of chemical 
principles are involved and out of which no clear chemical 
concepts can be evolved. 

Although the industrial applications often involve com- 
plicated chemistry and unfamiliar substances, there are 
nevertheless in every community some applications that 

^ Cf. p. 488, ante, the type notion in biology. 
* Cf. Schoch, op. cit., p. 47. 



5i8 Principles of Secondary Education 

can be examined and are simple enough to be understood; 
so the teacher should make himself acquainted with these and 
connect them with the chemical facts and principles that 
are applied in them, at the time when these are being studied. 
There are many fairly simple chemical substances and re- 
actions that are very common and very important to know 
about, such as the prevention of industrial waste through the 
utilization of by-products in manufacturing processes, the 
chemistry of flames, raising of bread and biscuits, respiration, 
digestion, sanitation, fermentation, drying of paint, setting 
of mortar and cement, making of glass, soap, coal gas, domestic 
ammonia, soda water, explosives and plastics, inks, dyes, and 
varnishes, the nature and sources of alcohol and vinegar, of 
oils, petroleum and gasoline, of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, 
and cellulose in foods, of soils and fertilizers and insecticides. 
How much or how little of these is to be brought into the 
course must depend on the knowledge and judgment of the 
teacher, the ease or difficulty of bringing the illustrations 
into the classroom or taking the class to them, the amount 
of knowledge and interest that the pupils bring to them, the 
closeness of their relation to the main features of the course, 
and many other considerations concerning which only the 
teacher himself can decide. Some of these things can be 
made the subjects of excursions, others of special home ex- 
periments and reports by those especially interested in them. 
Others still the teacher may merely explain and illustrate, 
leaving the seeds to fall on good ground when they may, with- 
out digging them up to see whether they have sprouted. It 
is certain that if the teacher is full of such information, and 
is enthusiastic about it, some of the pupils will be infected 
with this enthusiasm all the time, and all of them some of 
the time ; and chemistry in that school will be rated as a 
popular and practical subject. 

To save time for such work, the less common elements 
and compounds may be omitted, and the most of the more 



The Natural Sciences 519 

highly theoretical parts of the subject can be carefully ex- 
plained and illustrated by the teacher and informally dis- 
cussed by the class, but passed over without requiring that 
it shall be mastered. If the writer's observations and those 
of most of the college chemistry teachers of his acquaintance 
are reliable, he is justified in the opinion that only in rare 
instances are these theoretical parts mastered anjrway. There 
is no sense in expecting that every student will know every 
part of the course as well as every other part. Such an ideal 
grows out of a very poor conception of thoroughness. It 
is important that the pupils should know well and intimately 
a few of the chemical facts and laws that they are likely to 
meet with now or later in their active life or their leisure read- 
ing, that they should catch the spirit and method and some- 
thing of the logic of chemistry, that they should know how to 
plan and make an experiment, and that they should know 
where to find chemical books and how to get needed infor- 
mation out of them. It is not important that they should 
become walking encyclopedias of chemical information. 

TEE TEACHER 

PERSONALITY. — To be successful, the teacher must 
be an optimist, must be an enthusiast for the science that 
he or she is teaching, must be willing to work hard, must be 
genuinely interested in his pupils and their success. He 
must himself possess the open-minded scientific spirit, and 
must be ready to regard his teaching problems as experimental 
problems, to be solved by variation of methods with sys- 
tematic testing and selection. 

TRAINING. — For success in high school science work pro- 
found learning and research abihty are not required, but 
common sense and sound scholarship are. The teacher 
should know well and thoroughly the science or sciences 
that he is teaching, and should keep his knowledge up to date 
in every phase of it that touches his teaching. Beyond this 



520 Principles of Secondary Education 

his knowledge is better if it be extensive rather than intensive ; 
for he should have a fair acquaintance with the other sciences 
and the relations of the others to his own. He should have 
a ready command of correct English, and should have mas- 
tered the elementary principles of modern inductive logic 
as applied in the scientific method. If he teaches physics, 
or indeed chemistry either, he must also know mathematics 
well, — the more he knows of it the better, for he cannot 
grow in scholarship in his subject without the higher mathe- 
matics. All teachers of science, but especially those who 
teach physics and chemistry, should be able to make pho- 
tographs and lantern slides, to operate a projecting lantern, 
and to use at least the simpler kinds of tools. A teacher 
of physics, especially, who cannot construct simple apparatus 
and make ordinary repairs is incompetent. So also is a 
teacher of biology who is not reasonably expert in the use 
and care of a microscope and the technique of making sec- 
tions and mounting them on slides. Some ability to draw 
and a considerable amount of skill in experimentation are 
also indispensable to success in any branch of science. So 
also every teacher of science should have a thorough up-to- 
date knowledge of elementary psychology and the principles 
of teaching. These are the essentials. Whatever else the 
teacher has obtained in the way of general culture and special 
training is all to the good. With rare exceptions the requisite 
training cannot be acquired otherwise than by four years of 
college or normal school study under teachers who have them- 
selves had advanced university work. In addition to major 
work in the subjects he is to teach, the secondary science 
teacher should have minor work in at least one biological 
science, one earth science, and one physical science, and courses 
on the teaching of his own subject or subjects. No man or 
woman who is honest will be satisfied to continue in the work 
unless he has had this minimum of training or is persistently 
and systematically working towards it. A college degree is 



The Natural Sciences 521 

not essential, but an amount of training which it is supposed 
to represent is absolutely necessary. 

PROFESSIONAL SPIRIT. — The teacher of science should 
also be a dihgent reader of the literature of his subject. He 
should support by his subscription and read School Science 
and Mathematics, should keep up in a general way with 
the progress of science through Science, Nature, or Science 
Abstracts, and if possible should read some of the articles in 
the professional scientific journals or proceedings of the 
national societies of scientists who are speciaHsts in the 
branch that he is teaching. He should also read whatever 
books there are on the pedagogy of his subject. Whenever 
he can do so, he ought to attend the national or local meet- 
ings of scientific societies and associations of teachers where 
science and science teaching are discussed, and give himself 
the opportunity to meet the leading workers in his field and 
catch the inspiration that such contact affords. Finally, as 
a citizen and a representative of science in his community, the 
science teacher, when he can occasionally, ought willingly to 
respond to an invitation to give an illustrated popular lecture 
on some phase of his subject ; and if he is making some ex- 
periments in methods of presentation or has hit upon some 
new laboratory device or experiment that others would be 
helped by knowing about, he should write a description of it 
for School Science and Mathematics. No teacher will be 
able for long to inspire his pupils with the love of study unless 
he is himself an earnest student and an active professional 
worker. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. Can the antithesis between the standpoint of a "liberal" and 
a "vocational" aim in education be reconciled in the teaching of the 
sciences by the method of the problem approach? Cf. Bagley, W. C, 
The Educative Process, Chap. Ill, and Snedden, David, The Problem of 
Vocational Education, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1910, pp. 1-8, 
26-34, 71-74, 81. 

2. From your own standpoint, compare and criticize the views of 



522 Principles of Seco7idary Education 

Herbert Spencer in his Education^ Chap. I, of Huxley in his Science and 
Education, Chaps. IV, V, and VI, and of Matthew Arnold in his Essays 
in Criticism, pp. 37 ff. Can the different ideas be reconciled? How? 
If not, where does the truth lie ? 

3. What possibilities does geography possess for developing the right 
social and moral attitudes in adolescents? See Dewey, John, Moral 
Principles of Education, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1909, Chap. IV, 
and his School and Society, University of Chicago Press, 1913, Chap. I. 

4. Should we try to "create interest" in a new topic of science, or 
to find in it something which connects with the interests of the pupils ? 
See Dewey, John, Interest and Ejffort, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 
1913, Chap. II, especially pp. 23, 25, 33-35, 41-4S, 86-89. 

5. Make a list of life situations, in the occupations of some of your 
acquaintances, in which the specific habits that should be formed in 
the sciences that you have pursued would probably function. 

6. Make a similar list for concepts and ideals of methodical procedure. 

7. Make a bibliography of books that should be in every school 
library, as supplementary reading for pupils in the various sciences, 
especially such books as may have inspirational value. 

8. Choose any topic with which you are familiar and make a de- 
tailed lesson plan for teaching it. Include plans for field or laboratory 
work in connection with the class conference. 

9. In several textbooks on any one science apply the criteria for 
choice of subject matter ; and find the ratio or percentage that you would 
retain. Limit the study to one group of topics, and estimate the amounts 
in lines of print. 

10. Choose a topic in any one science, and make a list of the infor- 
mation on this topic that would probably be possessed as a result of 
previous experience by the majority of a class of city children. Make 
a similar list appropriate to a class of village or country children. Make 
out a list of easy questions which when put to the individuals of the class 
would reveal their knowledge or ignorance of the information that you 
have listed. Such a list could be used for testing the actual status of 
the class when beginning the topic. The same list, given after the study 
of the topic, could be used to compare their status after the training 
with their status before the training. 

11. Write out as good a statement as you can of your concept of ado- 
lescence ; read Professor Whipple's chapter on that subject in this book 
with a view to converting your psychological concept into a logical one ; 
then make a written statement of your new, or logical, concept, and 
compare it part by part with the former. Formulate your concept of 
the scientific method of study in about 250 to 500 words. 



The Natural Sciences 523 

12. Make a sketch plan to scale for a physics or chemistry classroom 
and laboratory combined, with a stockroom and photographic dark room 
in connection. Plan a similar room for biology and geography. Plan 
a layout of rooms for two of the sciences, consisting of two laboratories 
with a classroom between, and providing for storage room for apparatus 
and supplies. 

13. Compare your experiences in learning history or studying a 
dramatic selection by the textbook-lesson-and-recitation method with 
your experiences in working up a topic for a debate or a part which is to 
be acted in a play. Make an estimate of the relative amount of in- 
terest taken in the two kinds of learning and the relative amount of 
useful material retained in memory. Compare also the relative amounts 
of interest displayed by your classmates. Do the same in the case of 
a textbook science recitation and a laboratory exercise in which you 
were set to find out something that seemed to you to be worth while 
finding out. 

14. Read an article in the National Geographic Magazine and try to 
recollect, as you go along, what actual experiences and observations of 
yours help you to form a clear mental picture of the places, scenes, and 
relations described. Can you find data from your own experience 
to support the arguments of this chapter for the approach of topics in 
geography, or history and civics, from the "human" standpoint, and 
through local problems? To justify class excursions and field work in 
the sciences ? 

15. To what extent may collections of postcards, pictures from maga- 
zines, and advertising matter be used as class and laboratory illustrations ? 
Outline a plan for mounting and filing such material. 

16. Make a list of the ways in which man controls the forces of nature 
for his own purposes in your home locality. 

17. How much relative importance do you attach to analyzing plants 
and making herbaria, as compared with gaining experimental knowledge 
of how plants grow and behave ? As compared with knowledge of 
forestry, or of methods of testing seed corn ? 

18. Many teachers are advocating "general science" courses in the 
first year of high school. What are the arguments for and against such 
courses ? 

19. Admitting that a "general science" course should be introduced 
in your home school, should it consist of equal portions culled from all the 
sciences, or of a series of problems drawn from the local environment and 
its industries, or of a core of a single science (say physical geography, 
physiology, or biology, or agriculture) with material from the other 
sciences brought in and taught when needed for a broader and clearer 



524 Principles of Secondary Education 

understanding of the science adopted as the core? For references see 
the files of School Science and Mathematics, and the Proceedings of the 
National Education Association. 

20. OutUne a plan for cooperation between teachers for correlating 
geography and history, geography and biology, physics and mathe- 
matics, physics and chemistry, physics and physiology, household arts 
or manual training with any of the sciences. 

21. Choose a chapter in any science textbook and make an estimate 
of the relative emphasis that should be placed on each topic by arranging 
the topics in a list according to their relative worth from the standpoint 
of the pupils in your home community who do not expect to go to college. 
Assuming that you were a college teacher of the same subject, rank the 
topics again with reference to their importance for the students who are 
to continue the subject under you in college. What per cent of the topics 
are changed in relative rank? On what grounds did you make each 
change? Debate these grounds with others who are interested in the 
same problem. 

22. Is it correct or incorrect for a textbook to state a theory or law 
first and then justify it by illustrations ? Does the fact that the majority 
of authors do this prove that it is correct ? Can you bring forward real 
arguments to defend this practice ? Can you bring forward valid argu- 
ments to show that it is wrong ? If compelled to use a textbook built 
after this plan, in what way would you use it ? Illustrate by a particular 
book and lesson. 

23. In starting a new subject with a class is it better to begin studying 
about the subject, or to begin at once to study some thing or problem in 
the subject ? 

24. At what point in the study of geography would you introduce the 
concept of base level of erosion? of a peneplain? of a geographical 
cycle? Of what use are these concepts in a humanistic treatment of 
geography ? Answer the same questions for the principle of the con- 
servation of energy and the molecular theory in physics, for chemical 
equations, the law of the conservation of mass and the atomic theory 
in chemistry, and for the cell theory and the principle of evolution in 
biology. 

25. Make out a plan for your professional study for the next five years. 



The Natural Sciences 525 

REFERENCES 

Geography 

Beigham, a. p. Geographic Influences in American History. Boston, 
1903. 

Chamberlain, James F. Report of the N. E. A. Committee of 1909 on 
Secondary School Geography. Jour, of Geog., 8 : 1-9, September, 
1909. Also Proc. N. E. A., 1909, p. 820. 

Davis, W. M. Geographical Essays. Ginn, Boston, 1908. 

Davis, King, and Collie. The Use of Government Maps in Schools. 
Holt, New York. (Price 30 cents. Indispensable to teachers.) 

Dodge, R. E. Geography for Secondary Schools. Jour, of Geog., 7 : 
121-125, February, 1909. 

Dodge, R. E., and Kirchwey, C. B. Teaching of Geography in Ele- 
mentary Schools. Rand, McNally, Chicago, 1913. (High school 
teachers will find this exceedingly helpful, especially the bibliog- 
raphies.) 

Genthe, M. K. Geographical Text-books and Geographical Teaching. 
Jour, of Geog., 2: 227-243, 360-368, May and September, 1903. 
(A critical discussion of methods and textbooks.) 

Gregory, Keller, and Bishop. Physical and Commercial Geography. 
Ginn, Boston, 1910. (CoUege text, correlating the two phases of 
geography from the humanistic standpoint.) 

Journal of Geography (monthly). Madison, Wis. 

Mill, R. H. Guide to Geographical Books and Appliances. George 
Philip & Son, London, England, 1910. (Most complete bibliog- 
raphy of the kind in English.) 

MiLL,R.H. (editor). The International Geography. Appleton, New York. 
(Comprehensive regional treatment of the continents, exceedingly 
valuable and highly authoritative.) 

National Geographic Magazine (monthly). The National Geographic 
Society, Washington, D.C. 

Redway, J. W. The New Basis of Geography. Macmillan, New York, 
1901. (A manual for the preparation of teachers, with bibliography.) 

Salisbury, R. D. Physiography. Holt, New York. (CoUege text, com- 
prehensive and very suggestive.) 

Semple, E. C. American History and its Geographic Conditions. Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1903. 

Sutherland, W. J. The Teaching of Geography. Scott, Foresman & Co., 
Chicago, 1909. (Treats of general and special method, equipment, 
etc. Is psychologically sound. Contains extensive bibliography, 
selected with great care.). 



526 Principles of Secondary Education 

Whitbeck, R. H., and Martin, L. The High School Course in Geog- 
raphy. Bidl. oj the Univ. oj Wisconsin, No. 382, High School Series, 
No. 10, Madison, Wis., 1910. (Up-to-date treatment of subject 
matter and methods of teaching. Excellent bibliography. An 
exceedingly valuable pamphlet.) 

Biology 

American Naturalist (monthly). Ginn, Boston. 

Bailey, L. H. The Nature Study Idea. Doubleday, New York, 

1903. 
Bird Lore (bi-monthly). Macmillan, New York. 
Botanical Gazette (monthly). University of Chicago Press. 
Clodd, E. Pioneers of Evolution. Appleton, New York, 1897. 
Ganong, W. F. The Teaching Botanist. Macmillan, New York, 1910. 

(With excellent bibliography, outlines of work, experiments, and 

other information indispensable to teachers of botany.) 
Heald, F. D. Botany in the High School. Botany Section of Bull, of the 

Univ. of Texas, No. 150, Austin, Tex., 1910. (Well- selected bibliog- 
raphy, and outline of subject matter.) 
Hodge, C. F. Nature Study and Life. Ginn, Boston, 1902. 
Lloyd, F. E., and Bigelow, M. A. The Teaching of Biology. Longmans, 

1907. (With extended special and general bibliographies, and full 

discussion of laboratory methods and equipment.) 
Plant World (monthly) . Desert Laboratory, Tucson, Ariz. 
Report of Committee on United States Government Publications usable in 

Secondary Schools. Proc. N. E. A., 1909, p. 802. 
Shaler, N. S. Domesticated Animals, their Relations to Man, and his 

Advancement in Civilization. Scribners, New York, 1895. 
Thomson, J. A. The Science of Life. Stone, Chicago, 1899. 
VON Sachs, Julius. History of Botany. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 

England, 1890. 

Physics 

Cajori, Florian. History of Physics. Macmillan, New York, 1899. 
Dewey, John. Science as Subject Matter and Method. Science, 31 : 

121-127, January 28, 1910. 
Franklin, W. S. The Study of Science by Young People. Bull. No. 

4JI, N. Y. State Dept. of Education, September 15, 1908. 
Garnett, William. Heroes of Science — Physicists. E. & J. B. Young. 

New York, 1885. (Popular and accurate.) 
Jordan, David Starr. The High School Course. Popular Science 

Monthly, 73 : 28-31, July, 1908. 



The Natural Sciences 527 

Mach, E. The Science of Mechanics. Open Court Pub. Co., Chicago, 
1893. 

Mann, C. R., and Twiss, G. R. Physics. (Revised.) Scott, Foresman 
& Co., Chicago, 1910. (A high school text in which the ideas ad- 
vanced in this chapter are worked out for classroom use.) 

Mann, C. R. The Teaching of Physics. Macmillan, New York, 191 2. 
(Psychologically sound, very readable, and exceedingly suggestive. 
Valuable bibliographies.) 

Science Abstracts, Section A — Physics. Spon & Chamberlain, New York. 
(The best single publication for keeping up with the progress of 
research and discovery in physics.) 

Scientific American nnd Scientific American Supplement. New York. 

Shuster, a. The Progress of Physics during Thirty-three Years, 
University Press, Cambridge, England, 191 1. 

Smith, A., and Hall, E. H. (See under Chemistry. The part by Pro- 
fessor Hall contains much information of value to teachers of 
physics, including bibliographies.) 

Stallo, J. B. The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics. Appleton, 
New York, 1897. 

Symposium on the Purpose and Organization of Physics Teaching. Avery, 
L. B. — Baldwin, J. Mark — Butler, Nicholas Murray — Chute, 
H. N. — Crew, Henry — Dewey, John — Hall, G. Stanley — ■ 
Michelson, Albert A. — Millikan, R. A. — Strong, E. A. — Terry, 
H. L. — Twiss, G. R. — Woodhull, John F. ; School Science and 
Mathematics, December, 1908 and January, February, and March, 
1909. (Published also in pamphlet, price 10 cents.) 

Terry, H. L. The New Movement in Physics Teaching. Educational 
Review, 37 : 12-18, January, 1909. 

Thorndike, E. L. Science Teaching as seen from the Outside. Bull. 
No. J4, N. Y. State Dept. of Education, August, 1907. 

Twiss, G. R. Laboratory Exercises in Physics. Scott, Foresman & Co., 
Chicago, 1 906. (This manual is not fully up to date from the author's 
present point of view ; and a few of the experiments in it would now 
be rejected by him ; but it contains an abundance of others which 
are entirely satisfactory, and give excellent results with the pupils. 
Contains many valuable hints to teachers on laboratory work and 
equipment.) 

Watson, W. A Text-book of Physics. Longmans, New York, 1907. (A 
well-balanced college text, very readable.) 

Woodhull, John F. Science for Culture. School Science and Mathe- 
matics, 7 : 83-93, February, 1907. Also in School Review, Chicago, 
February, 1907. 



528 Principles of Secondary Education 



Chemistry 

Bauer, Hugo. A History of Chemistry. Longmans, New York, 1907. 

Burns, E. E. Story of Great Inventions. Harpers, New York, 1910. 

Freund, Ida. The Study of Chemical Composition. The University 
Press, Cambridge, England, 1904. (An advanced account of the 
method and historical development of theoretical chemistry. 
Exceedingly valuable to the teacher who would learn the true spirit 
and method of science as well as the theories, past and present, that 
have helped to advance chemical knowledge.) 

Remsen, Ira. Organic Chemistry. Heath, Boston, 1909. 

RoscoE, H. E. John Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemistry. Mac- 
miUan, New York, 1895. 

ScHOCH, E. P. Chemistry in High Schools. Bull. Univ. of Texas, No. 
210, Austin, Tex., 1911. (Hints on methods and equipment, 
excellent.) 

Smith, A., and Hall, E. H. The Teaching of Chemistry and Physics. 
Longmans, New York, 1 904. (A very complete treatment, as to chem- 
istry, both philosophical and pedagogical, including methods of 
laboratory management and equipment, and extended bibliog- 
raphies.) 

Smith, A. Inorganic Chemistry. The Century Co., New York. 

Laboratory Outline of General Chemistry. The Century Co., New York. 

Thorpe, T. E. Essays in Historical Chemistry. Macmillan, New 
York, 1894. 

van't Hoff, J. H. Physical Chemistry in the Service of the Sciences. 
University of Chicago Press, 1903. 

VON Meyer, Ernest. A History of Chemistry, from the earliest times 
to the present day, being also an introduction to the study of the 
science. Macmillan, New York, 1898. 

Weichmann, F. G. Science Sketches, Chemistry. Wm. R. Jenkins, New 
York, 1899. "Very readable and very good." 



CHAPTER XIII 

MATHEMATICS 

NATURE AND USE OF THE SUB JECT. — Attempts 
to define so broad a subject as mathematics have not been 
very successful. Benjamin Peirce, one of the best of the 
American- trained mathematicians, said that " mathematics 
is the science that draws necessary conclusions." Such a 
definition trespasses upon the domain of logic ; but there are 
many who would relate logic and mathematics, as sciences, 
more closely than is commonly done. Professor Bocher 
has suggested a basis of definition : " We may seek some 
hidden resemblance in the various objects of mathematical 
investigation, and, having found an aspect common to them 
all, we may fiz on this as the one true object of mathematical 
study. Or we may abandon the attempt to characterize 
mathematics by means of its objects of study, and seek in 
its methods its distinguishing characteristic. Finally there 
is the possibiHty of combining these two points of view." 
When, however, we attempt to define the science with respect 
to its objects, we are confronted by so many difficulties that 
there seems but Httle hope of success. There seems more 
chance of favorable results in attempting to define the science 
by means of methods, and numerous efforts in this direction 
have been made. Professor J. W. Young has recently sug- 
gested the defining of " abstract mathematical system " as a 
system of symbols devoid of content except such as is implied 
in the assumptions concerning them, and then saying that 
" mathematics as a whole might then be defined as consist- 
ing of all such abstract mathematical systems together with 

2M 529 



530 Principles of Secondary Education 

all their concrete applications." These attempts at defining 
the science serve at least to show the broadening of the subject 
from century to century. 

Reasons for its Study. — With this broadening of the science 
itself has come not merely the difficulty of definition, but also 
the difficulty of stating in concise terms the certain reasons 
for studying the subject. We may set forth certain reasons for 
studying this phase or that, but for studying a science that is 
so broad that we can hardly define it, and so far-reaching 
in its applications, it is manifestly well-nigh impossible. 

In the elementary portions of the general field it is possi- 
ble to assign some reasons for studying the science. Among 
these, utility stands out prominently, and indeed there are 
few parts of mathematics that have not very definite applica- 
tions to some other line of science or to some of the arts. 
Not only is there the definite application of the present to be 
considered, but there is potential application. No one 
thought when complex numbers were first suggested that 
they would in our day play a part in the theory of electricity, 
for example ; nor did the Egyptians and Greeks see in their 
shadow reckoning the forerunner of the trigonometry that 
uses the slide rule and logarithms in its computations, as at 
present. Certain of the reasons for the study of mathematics 
are set forth under the various branches considered later. 

Branches of the Subject. — There is no well-defined basis 
for the satisfactory classification of the branches of mathe- 
matics. Indeed, the modern tendency is toward the uniting 
of these branches rather than their differentiation. In ele- 
mentary mathematics this tendency shows itself in the use 
of the simple equation and the introduction of mensuration 
in arithmetic ; in the use of the facts of mensuration thus 
learned in algebra ; in the use of algebra in the elementary 
course in geometry ; and in the use of both algebra and geom- 
etry to a greater extent than formerly in trigonometry. Many 
would like to see the union of elementary mathematics made 



Mathematics 531 

still more close, and it is probable that the interrelation of 
algebra and geometry will become more and more pronounced, 
not in their complete fusion, since the methods of reasoning 
vary so much in the two branches, but in the emphasizing 
of the natural points of contact. 

Range of Secondary Mathematics. — At present in America 
secondary mathematics includes algebra, geometry, and trigo- 
nometry. It is probable that, in the natural course of evolu- 
tion, this conception of the subject will be changed to har- 
monize with world experience. There is no reason why a 
fair working knowledge of the algebra and geometry of the 
artisan should not be given in Grades VII and VIII, where 
at the present time the mathematics is chiefly sociology and 
a low grade of economics, — the subject of taxation, for ex- 
ample, having practically no mathematics left in it. There 
is no reason why, at the end of Grade IX, a pupil should not 
know what algebra and geometry mean and how to solve the 
ordinary problems of mensuration by trigonometry. In the 
next two years the pupil should be allowed to elect algebra, 
geometry, and trigonometry, the experience of the world 
showing that this work can easily be covered at this time. 
In the twelfth school year a fair idea of the calculus and me- 
chanics can be given, and is given in many parts of the world. 
The future may reasonably have this in store for American 
pupils, but it is a matter of slow preparation to get teachers 
ready for such work. 

ALGEBRA. General Nature of the Subject. — The term 
algebra has had several meanings in the development of the 
subject as we now understand it, and even at present it 
is used in a rather undefined sense. As first used, the term 
referred to the science of the equation, as will be seen in the 
remarks below on the history of algebra. With the develop- 
ment of symbolism it came to refer to that part of mathe- 
matics which teaches the use of letters to represent numbers, 
not merely in equations but in operations essential to the 



532 Principles of Secondary Education 

study of more advanced mathematics, such as the fundamental 
operations resembling those of arithmetic. Among the va- 
rious attempts to define algebra may be mentioned Newton's 
characterization of the subject as " universal arithmetic," 
the more common one of " generahzed arithmetic," and 
Comte's expression, the " calculus of functions," as distin- 
guished from arithmetic, which is the " calculus of values." 
None of these attempts is more than a mere epigram. The 
fact is that mathematicians do not find it necessary or profit- 
able to attempt any exact definition of the science. It is 
the calculus of certain functions, and in general these func- 
tions are those involving addition and an inverse, multi- 
plication and an inverse, involution and an inverse. Thus, 
besides a -|- & = c we have a = c — h, and h = c — a ; be- 
sides ah = c we have a = c -i- h, h = c -^ a\ besides c^ = c 
we have a == a/c, but h = log c -^ log a is commonly excluded 
from elementary algebra, and log a is not considered as an 
algebraic number. Algebra is commonly considered at pres- 
ent to mean that part of mathematics which uses letters to 
represent numbers, which treats of the operations of arith- 
metic performed with numbers represented in this manner, 
and which emphasizes the use of the equation. Higher 
algebra is taken to include such topics as symmetric func- 
tions, power sums, the proof of the fact that every algebraic 
equation has a root, number congruences, continued fractions, 
determinants, and various other theories needed in advanced 
work. 

Reasons for Studying Algebra. — There has of late been 
some justifiable criticism of the conventional teaching of algebra 
as the subject has come down to us. This has been accom- 
panied, as is usual in such movements, by the attack of the 
.extremist who would like to do away with the subject alto- 
gether. Each of these movements is worthy of attention, 
and the essential feature of any reply must ultimately rest 
upon the reasons for the study of algebra. There are those 



Mathematics ^ 533 

who object to the reasons usually given because they are too 
numerous, as if the varied reasons that a boy has for loving 
his mother should be adduced to show that he does not love 
her at all, or should not love her. There are various reasons 
for studying algebra, as for studying every other subject, 
and most of those which are advanced have a good basis. 

Limiting ourselves to a few of the more important reasons 
why every pupil, girl as well as boy, should study the subject, 
it may first be said that general information requires it. If 
mathematics did not touch every great business enterprise, 
all kinds of engineering, all our conception of the infinite 
about us, all great industries, the work of the twentieth-cen- 
tury artisan, the navigation of the ships, and the building of 
aeroplanes, then it might be treated as a luxury for the scholar 
alone ; but mathematics does touch all these Hnes of mental 
and manual activity, and hence it is a subject about which 
every person should be somewhat informed, just as every 
person should be informed about the growth of industry, the 
emancipation of labor, the history of invention, and his duties 
to his fellows. 

But is algebra of enough importance to be included in a 
course of study for the reason given above ? To-day, yes ; 
the question was more debatable yesterday. To-day there 
is no artisan who takes a trade journal or who reads a man- 
ual devoted to his Hne of work who does not meet the formula 
and who does not need to know how to evaluate and manipu- 
late it. To-day is a day of encyclopedias, but no mechanic 
reads an article on his subject without finding that he must 
know the universal language of algebra. The rules of diet 
and the laws of sanitation, in which the woman is coming to 
be an expert, are now stated in algebraic terms. Statistics 
are given in graphs, conclusions from these statistics appear 
in formulas, simple rules of physics are given as equations, 
and a knowledge of this language is essential to even a fair 
degree of education. 



534 Principles of Secondary Educatio7i 

This, however, is not the inherited algebra, and it is the 
latter which is open to criticism rather than the algebra of 
the future. And yet the inherited subject has some undis- 
puted value. It gives faciUty in the manipulation of algebraic 
expressions which is helpful in the kind of work already men- 
tioned, and which has the interest of variety. The pupil 
becomes a master of elementary technique by this manipula- 
tion, and this technique is valuable to him whether he uses 
it only as the artisan may, or proceeds to higher mathematics. 

For the girl, who is the one who will direct the education of 
the children of the next generation, — her own children or 
those of others, — an all-round education is imperative. 
The father may be narrow in his training, but the mother 
must have touched all the great Hnes of intellectual activity 
if she is to guide her children intelUgently. 

There are various other important reasons for studying 
algebra, such as the influence of exact truth upon character 
formation. How much of this can be carried over into the 
daily action has never yet been measured, and probably it 
never will be weighed with absolute accuracy. That this 
influence is real, however, seems undeniable. Furthermore, 
the habits of orderly arrangement, of logical argument, of 
constantly checking one's conclusions, and of terseness of 
expression that are acquired in the study of algebra, seem to 
be attributes which carry over from this domain to other 
hnes of intellectual activity. 

Teachers of algebra are reaUzing the new demands upon 
the subject and the new possibilities before them, and with 
this realization is coming, by the ordinary process of evolu- 
tion, a better science of mathematics. 

Present Status in the Curriculum. — In the schools of the 
United States algebra is at present generally taught in the 
first year of a four-year high school course, or in the ninth 
school year beyond the kindergarten, and in half of the eleventh 
school year. The general plan is to cover the four fundamental 



Mathematics 535 

operations with integers and fractions, factoring, powers and 
roots, linear equations with one, two, or three unknown 
quantities, and quadratic equations with one unknown quan- 
tity. This year of work is generally followed by a year in 
plane geometry. Half of the next year, the eleventh in the 
pupil's course, is usually devoted to algebra, reviewing the 
preceding work and completing the elementary work through 
quadratic equations with two unknown quantities, including 
easy radical equations. 

There is at present a strong movement in favor of using 
the linear equation with one unknown quantity, and also 
simple formulas in algebraic language, in the work in arith- 
metic in the elementary grades, and in particular in the seventh 
and eighth school years. There is also a very marked ten- 
dency to change the traditional high school course of four 
years to a course of five or six years, beginning in the eighth 
or seventh school year. The effect of this plan will be to 
complete the essentials of arithmetic in the elementary school 
(the first six school years), to review arithmetic in the high 
school (the second six school years), and to extend the in- 
struction in algebra over a longer period. This might profit- 
ably be done without taking any more time for mathematics 
than at present. The result, if we can secure as good candi- 
dates for teaching as are secured in the older countries, will 
be a much better training in algebra before the pupil enters 
college or goes into business. 

The textbook in elementary algebra is merely a develop- 
ment of the sixteenth-century textbook in arithmetic. One 
of the first successful works of this kind was the Algebra 
by Christopher Clavius, a Jesuit teacher, who went from 
Germany to Rome and pubHshed this textbook in 1608. 
The general plan of the book is similar to that of his Epitome 
Arithmeticce Practices, which appeared in 1583 and which 
went through several editions, — first notation, then the 
operations with integers, then fractions, and then equations. 



53^ Principles of Secondary Education 

There has of late been a tendency to change this plan, and to 
introduce algebra by showing the uses of the formula and of 
the Hnear equation with one unknown quantity; in other 
words, to make the transition from arithmetic to algebra 
less marked. 

In European Schools. — In the European schools it is the 
custom to introduce abstract algebra earher than is usually 
the case in America. This is accomplished by combining 
it with arithmetic more fully than is done here ; by having 
less arithmetic taught, partly because of the freedom on the 
continent, from the difficult system of compound numbers 
that is still used in England, Canada, and the United States ; 
and by having more vigorous teaching than is the general 
custom in the western hemisphere. Thus in the Normallehr- 
plan des Gymnasiums of Austria, of 1909, algebraic notation, 
the negative number, and the geometric-algebraic significance 
of {a + h), {a — by, {a + &)(« — &), (a + by, etc., are 
introduced in the sixth school year. In the seventh school 
year linear equations with several unknowns and the quad- 
ratic equation with one unknown are studied. In the eighth 
year this work is elaborated, and in the ninth year, at a time 
when the American schools are usually beginning algebra, 
the subjects of logarithms, complex numbers, and the easier 
forms of higher equations are being studied. A somewhat 
similar state of advancement is seen in the curricula of several 
of the German states, in many of the EngHsh schools, and 
in the mathematical classes of France. These facts have 
raised the question as to whether the schools of America are 
utiUzing to the best advantage the time assigned to mathe- 
matics. 

GEOMETRY. — Etymologically, the word means earth 
measure, from the Greek, 7^, ge, earth + {J^erpov, metron, 
measure. It has come, however, to mean the general science 
of form, the words " surveying " and " geodesy " being ap- 
plied to the measuring of the earth. 



Mathematics 537 

Reasons for Studying Geometry. — It has always been 
held that geometry is studied because of a pecuHar training 
and pleasure that this science gives, and that other sciences 
do not give, at least in the same degree. With the investiga- 
tions of modern psychologists there has come a doubt. as to 
the value of the training that it gives, and this has led many 
emotional followers of new doctrines to proclaim that geom- 
etry has no such claim upon the pupil's time as the advocates 
of this value assert. Modern educators do not claim, how- 
ever, that geometry has no value 'per se, but rather that the 
methods of presenting the subject that have obtained in the 
past can be improved, and that certain of the values formerly 
claimed for it do not exist. To this the more thoughtful 
teachers of the subject have long since assented. For ex- 
ample, it was poor policy to memorize all of geometry, for 
this plan took away the pleasure of the study, and it did not 
give the pupil any power that he could carry over into other 
lines of work, save as he acquired facts which he could have 
obtained as well without the labor of memorizing the proofs 
of Euclid. 

The advocates of a substantial geometry, as opposed to the 
mere acquisition of a few rules of mensuration, claim that 
the study of geometry brings great pleasure and an inspiring 
mental upKft, when the subject is properly presented. They 
place it in this respect upon a plane similar to that upon which 
the study of literature and music rests. They claim further 
that through geometry a student acquires a knowledge of 
space relations that he does not acquire from other subjects, 
which knowledge he carries over into the study of the graphic 
and plastic arts, of' geography and astronomy, and of the 
science of mechanics. They also assert that geometry is 
the only subject in the secondary curriculum that gives a 
specific training in deductive logic, and that this training 
gives a habit of thought that is carried over into other Hues 
of mental activity. And finally they claim that habits of 



53^ Principles of Secondary Education 

persistence, of using only the necessary steps in an argument, 
of holding to that which is true, of seeking for exact truth, 
and of arranging work in logical order, are instilled by the 
study of geometry, and that these habits are unconsciously 
transferred to other fields of work. In other words, they 
claim that the pleasure and the profit of approach to exact 
truth give a power that makes the pupil stronger in his other 
activities. This claim is sanctioned by the opinions of most 
people who have studied geometry under a worthy teacher, 
and no investigations thus far made have shaken it. The 
statement that geometry has no value as a mental disciphne 
is usually found to mean that there is no such thing as mental 
discipline as defined by the antagonist, to which most people 
would heartily agree. 

Present Status of the Teaching of Geometry. — Plane 
geometry is now commonly taught in the United States in 
the tenth school year, the second year of a four-year high 
school. This is usually followed by a half year of soHd geom- 
etry, frequently elective. It is not the universal custom to 
finish all of plane geometry in a single year, although this is 
done in many of the best schools, and it probably represents 
the future curriculum as to the amount of time to be allowed 
to the subject. There is at present a tendency to reduce 
the number of basal propositions and to increase the number 
of exercises, so as to give a student more opportunity for in- 
dependent work. The eastern colleges do not require soHd 
geometry for entrance to the arts course, while the western 
ones frequently do require it. This means that more work 
is covered in plane geometry in the secondary schools of the 
eastern states, the amount of time spent on the entire subject 
of geometry being about the same. From every standpoint 
it would be better that a pupil should sacrifice a certain amount 
of plane geometry for the purpose of having an introduction 
to solid geometry, if he could acquire the latter only in this 
manner. 



Mathematics 539 

Certain attempts have been made to teach algebra and 
geometry simultaneously, or even to fuse them into a single 
subject. This has usually met with only sporadic success. 
That the foreign schools have usually run geometry over 
several years, as opposed to the American plan, is Hable to 
be misunderstood. Where serious demonstrative geometry 
has been begun early and extended over several years, the 
results have not been satisfactory. Usually the early geom- 
etry has been mere mensuration, a subject that is taught in 
the American arithmetic, and that is coming to be very satis- 
factorily taught. It may therefore be said that in America 
geometry extends over several years, culminating in a year 
or a year and a half of serious demonstrative work. That 
the earher work is capable of great improvement is, however, 
apparent. As to the fusing of the two subjects of algebra 
and geometry in one, this seems destined to meet with suc- 
cess only in schools in which nothing but a Httle practical 
geometry is studied. 

The question of the nature of the textbook is one that is 
periodically agitated. Several types have been suggested : 
(i) A book with the basal proofs substantially in full, to serve 
as models, and a large number of well-graded exercises for 
original work ; (2) a syllabus of basal propositions ; (3) a 
book of suggested proofs, heuristic in nature. Of these the 
first has been the one almost universally used, the objections 
to it having little force with a good teacher, and the other 
forms being useless with a poor teacher. 

Reforms and Improvements. — Numerous reforms and 
improvements are being suggested for the treatment of geom- 
etry at the present time, and a few of these will be mentioned, 
(i) That geometry and algebra be fused into a single subject, 
an effort that takes no account of the fact that the two sub- 
jects are distinct in purpose, in results, and in difficulty, and 
that each has a peculiar interest that is lost when it sacrifices 
its individuahty. (2) That the two subjects be taught simul- 



540 Principles of Secondary Education 

taneously, two days of one and three of the other during each 
school week. This has often been tried in the United States, 
but in the main with unsatisfactory results, not because the 
plan is unsound, but because of our system. Psychologically 
the argument is that the pupil is not mature enough for this 
plan, his interest being better maintained by concentrating 
his energy on either the one or the other. The argument 
that he would see the relation of one science to the other 
better by the simultaneous than the tandem arrangement 
is partly offset by the custom of the best teachers to bring 
into algebra as much of the mensuration learned in arithmetic 
as possible, and to introduce into geometry as many appK- 
cations of algebra as seem adapted to this purpose. The 
plan will probably succeed in America, as it has elsewhere, 
when the high school controls the teaching in Grades VII and 
VIII. (3) That geometry be converted into an applied 
science, joining the general industrial movement of the present. 
This would mean that geometry would cease to exist, since 
the applications of the subject are merely the rules of men- 
suration learned in arithmetic, and learned by a natural form 
of induction. If geometry were abolished, it would be possible 
to introduce other lines of mathematics, such as trigonometry 
(which requires only very little geometry), calculus (which 
requires practically no geometry beyond elementary men- 
suration for a large number of its appHcations) , and some 
little work in the practical problems of vector analysis. For 
the great majority of students this seems unwise, since they 
have Uttle interest in these appHcations, but in certain forms 
of technical high schools such an arrangement may prove 
necessary. (4) That algebra be taught for a half year, fol- 
lowed by geometry for the same length of time, and this by 
another half year of algebra, followed again by a half year of 
geometry. This plan has certain advantages over the year 
arrangement, but as yet it has to justify itself, the general 
feeling being that the pupil would lose more in immediate 



Mathematics 541 

interest in a topic than he would gain in sustained interest in 
mathematics as a whole. 

While these suggestions for reform are open to question, 
other reforms are meeting with general acceptance and are 
improving the current teaching of geometry, (i) It is uni- 
versally agreed that Euclid is undesirable as a textbook for 
beginners, and, even in England where it has so long been the 
standard, it is now superseded by books more suited to the 
youthful mind. (2) The propositions of the textbook are 
coming to be considered more in the light of basal truths, and 
the proofs as models, and the serious work of the pupils is 
coming to be more and more in the realm of exercises. (3) The 
exercises are coming to be more carefully grouped and graded. 
(4) Such legitimate applications as can be found, and as give 
interest to the study of geometry, are being sought for and 
introduced. (5) More attention is being given to geometric 
design, so long as this does not detract from the scientific work. 
(6) The role of intuition is more evident. In brief, serious 
effort is being made to make geometry more interesting and 
useful, and to recognize its game element and its utility, 
without destroying the values that have long made it a recog- 
nized standard subject in the curriculum. 

ALGEBRA AND GEOMETRY IN THE GRAMMAR 
GRADES. — The idea of introducing algebra and geometry 
in the elementary school arose from the feeling that too much 
arithmetic was required and that the foreign mathematical 
curriculum might profitably replace the American. By the 
foreign plan, less arithmetic has been required than in the 
United States, allowing time for some work in literal notation 
at least, and in some form of geometry. 

The idea is plausible, but like all new ideas it has not been 
sufficiently considered by some of its advocates. Granted 
that there is some time available for algebra and geometry 
in the last six years of the elementary school, what should be 
the nature of this work ? 



542 Principles of Secondary Education 

As to algebra, the first experiments led to an attempt to 
use a considerable amount of literal notation simply because 
it was part of algebra. Removing of signs of aggregation, 
performing the various operations with integers and fractions, 
and the solution of a rather meaningless lot of equations, 
formed the body of the early work as attempted abroad and 
in America. This has, more recently, given place to a more 
rational use of algebra as a part of arithmetic. The use of 
:r in a simple equation has come to be allowed in the solution 
of arithmetical problems, to the material benefit of arithmetic. 
The use of the formula, in the ordinary algebraic symbolism, 
has come to be a recognized part of arithmetic, as in a = trr^. 
In other words, the part of algebra that throws light upon 
and correlates with arithmetic has been adopted, not as a 
separate subject, but as something to be assimilated with the 
older science. 

There are, however, many schools in which it seems best to 
introduce an elementary textbook in algebra in the seventh 
or eighth school year, replacing the arithmetic entirely. For 
such schools several good manuals of elementary algebra 
have been prepared. The best of these begin by showing 
the practical uses of algebra, usually in formulas with which 
the pupils are familiar. They then show the use of the simple 
equation in the solution of the problems of ordinary arith- 
metic. This is followed by the nature of the negative number 
and its practical applications. The fundamental operations 
with integers and fractions are treated in a simple fashion, 
and the work closes with further practical problems in simple 
equations and easy quadratics. 

Each of these plans is usable, and each is adapted to par- 
ticular types of school. The plan of introducing the abstract 
algebra of the high school into the elementary grades is not, 
however, to be commended. 

The introduction of demonstrative geometry into the ele- 
mentary grades has not been so successful. It is true that 



Mathematics 543 

in the best English schools Euclid has been taught in what 
we would call the grammar grades, but this does not appeal 
to American teachers as an educational policy to be followed. 
The work is too abstract and too logical to be understood, 
and the gain of mere memorizing is offset by the loss in in- 
terest. Recently in England there has been a great improve- 
ment in this respect, some excellent propaedeutic work being 
done in algebra and geometry. In Germany, there are some 
good textbooks in demonstrative geometry, adapted to the 
grades. These, however, do not appeal to the American 
teacher as usable here. While better for the purpose than 
Euclid, they are lacking in interest and in motive. It is a 
mistake, however, to feel that America has done nothing in 
this field. There has always been a considerable amount of 
work in mensuration in our arithmetics. Formerly this 
was, like arithmetic in general, merely a matter of rule ; but 
for some years back there has been a successful effort made 
to render this work clear to the understanding, intuitional if 
not logical in the formal sense. As a result, the work in 
mensuration now given in the best American arithmetics 
seems a very satisfactory solution of the problem of intro- 
ducing some geometry into the grades, until the time when 
the high school department of mathematics takes over the 
work. 

Efforts have been made, but with no marked success, to 
construct a geometry suited to the grammar grades. These 
have thus far taken the form of textbooks on constructive 
geometry, on observational geometry, and on an elementary 
type of demonstrative geometry. These works serve a good 
purpose in that teachers see how to make the subject of men- 
suration more real, but they have not had any marked in- 
fluence beyond this point. Further improvement in the field 
of geometry in the grades seems to lie (i) in the securing of 
a larger number of practical problems in mensuration, 
adapted to the interests of the children, and possibly (2) in 



544 Principles of Secondary Education 

the preparation of a textbook in geometry similar to the sev- 
eral textbooks in algebra for beginners. 

Looking to the ideal arrangement, we should all hope for 
the beginning of intuitive geometry in Grade VII, or earlier, 
to be followed by the algebra of the formula and equation as 
soon as the need arises, and certainly in Grade VIII. In 
Grade IX formal algebra and formal geometry may be given. 
Thus every child would come to know mathematics in its 
general bearing, and to know what algebra and real geometry 
mean. Thereafter the subject may be elective, for the door 
has now been opened and the youth may enter or not as he 
pleases. The intellectual type will continue in such subjects 
as mathematics, sciences, history, and languages, while the non- 
intellectual type will be content with other fields of activity. 

College Entrance Requirements in Mathematics. — The 
entrance requirements in mathematics in the American college 
were very limited until well into the nineteenth century. At 
present there is a rather uniform requirement in the various 
colleges of algebra through quadratics and plane geometry. 
Many western colleges require plane and solid geometry, 
receiving students upon certificate, and demanding a less 
intensive course in plane geometry but a broader course in 
the entire elementary field. Technological courses usually 
require solid geometry for entrance, and often plane trigo- 
nometry as well. All colleges give advance credit for higher 
algebra, solid geometry, and trigonometry, in case these sub- 
jects are not required for entrance but are offered as part of 
the preparatory work. 

The College Entrance Examination Board, founded 
in 1900, a voluntary organization of representatives from 
various colleges and universities, at present sets examinations 
in the following subjects : ia) Elementary algebra : (i) algebra 
to quadratics, and (ii) quadratics and beyond. This is divided 
into two examinations, the first including roots and the theory 
of exponents, and the second covering quadratic equations, 



Mathematics 545 

the binomial theorem for positive integral exponents, and 
formulas for the wth term and the sum of arithmetical and 
geometric progressions. (&) Advanced algebra. This in- 
cludes permutations and combinations; complex numbers 
with graphic representation of sums and differences ; deter- 
minants, chiefly of orders not exceeding four; numerical 
equations of higher degree, Descartes's rule of signs, and 
Horner's method of solution, (c) Plane geometry. The lim- 
itations are not definitely fixed by the board, the statement 
being : " The usual theorems and constructions of good text- 
books, including the general properties of plane rectilinear 
figures ; the circle and the measurement of angles ; similar 
polygons ; areas ; regular polygons and the measurement 
of the circle. The solution of numerous original exercises, 
including loci problems. Applications to the mensuration 
of lines and plane surfaces." This practically means the 
plane geometry of Euclid, with an algebraic treatment of 
ratio and proportion, without the incommensurable cases, 
and with a large number of exercises, {d) Solid geometry. 
This requirement is also left indefinite, but it covers the 
ground of solid geometry as given by Legendre, upon whose 
work most of our American textbooks are based, (e) Trigo- 
nometry. The requirements are as follows : Definitions and 
relations of the six trigonometric functions as ratios ; circular 
measurement of angles; proofs of principal formulas, in 
particular for the sine, cosine, and tangent of the sum and 
the difference of two angles, of the double angle and the half 
angle, the product expressions for the sum or the difference 
of two sines or of two cosines, etc. ; the transformation of 
trigonometric expressions by means of these formulas ; solu- 
tion of trigonometric equations of a simple character ; theory 
and use of logarithms (without the introduction of work in- 
volving infinite series) ; the solution of right and oblique 
triangles and practical applications, including the solution 
of right spherical triangles. 

2N } 



<I 



546 Principles of Secondary Education 

It is hardly probable that, with the present school system, 
the entrance requirements can be materially advanced. They 
may be changed to cover a broader field less thoroughly, but 
the time does not permit of any more extended treatment of 
mathematics save as an elective. It is coming to be felt 
that two years devoted to mathematics in the high school is 
all that can be demanded, and in this time it is not probable 
that more can be attempted than algebra through quadratics 
and plane geometry. 

SPECIAL VISUAL AIDS TO TEACHING MATHE- 
MATICS. — There developed in the early years of the twen- 
tieth century a great deal of interest in the question of the 
role of intuition, experiment, and visualization in mathe- 
matics. The lead was taken quite as much by Austria as by 
any other single country, with Germany about equally prom- 
inent, and with certain parts of Switzerland well to the 
front. The movement centered largely, in the early school 
years, in mensuration. It has been found that children of 
the fifth grade appreciate field measurements involving such 
simple apparatus as an angle measure (even a radius on a 
paper protractor), and that they draw figures to scale and 
compute heights and distances from the drawing. Even 
before this grade visual aids are used in the teaching of count- 
ing, fractions, and the simple mensuration of rectangles; 
but from this time on it is possible to introduce systematically 
and successfully aids of a more scientific character. Among 
those that appeal to children in the elementary school may be 
mentioned the following : the mirror, for measuring heights ; 
the mirror angle for running perpendiculars, useful in com- 
puting distances ; the prism, used for the same purpose ; the 
hypsometer, a simple instrument that can be made from 
heavy pasteboard and used for measuring heights ; the cli- 
nometer, easily made from a paper protractor, and used in 
measuring slopes ; the pocket compass, or some elaboration 
of it that permits of measuring horizontal angles ; the pro- 



Mathematics 547 

tractor with a moving radius, easily made from paper ; grad- 
uated staffs, used in measuring altitudes by means of simple 
ratios, and similar aids that can be used in visualizing mathe- 
matics in the field or schoolroom. In the mensuration of 
solids it is possible to purchase sets of models, the German 
ones being superior in workmanship to any others. Ger- 
man makers also have for sale models of the solids used in 
geometry, from the elementary to the most advanced. 

In general it may be said that there is quite as much danger 
in the too extensive use of models and instruments as in their 
neglect altogether. In the elementary school they add to 
the interest by their novelty, and to the powers of visualizing 
similar forms. In the secondary school they are capable of 
abuse by being used so extensively that the pupil depends 
upon them too much and fails to acquire the power of mentally 
seeing the solids that he is studying. A moderate use of 
simple instruments (homemade, if necessary) for the purpose 
of mensuration is of unquestionable value. Similarly, the 
making of certain models in soHd geometry is of value, and 
their moderate use is justified, but to have a model, or even 
a picture of one, for every proposition makes for weakness 
rather than strength. The general principle, in elementary 
as well as higher mathematics, is to use visual aids only so 
long as they are necessary to fix a mental picture, thereafter 
referring to them only when this picture becomes so dimmed 
as to make them again necessary. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What are three of the leading reasons for the study of algebra, and 
what improvement in the teaching of the subject wUl bring out these 
reasons more clearly ? 

2. What are three of the leading reasons for the study of geometry, 
and what improvement in the teaching of the subject will bring out 
these reasons more clearly ? 

3. In the teaching of geometry, what changes have been suggested 
that do not seem warranted by the experience of the world or by the 
philosophy of education ? 



548 Principles of Secondary Education 

4. Name three of the various types of textbooks in geometry, and 
discuss the merits of each. 

5. What is meant by propaedeutic work in mathematics, what should 
be the nature of this work, and when may it properly be undertaken ? 

6. What are the claims of practical mathematics, and how can these 
claims be met without making the subject too technical for the general 
student ? 

7. There has been some effort to fuse all mathematics in one subject, 
not teaching algebra by itself, geometry by itself, and so on. The ex- 
perience of the world favors teaching these subjects separately, but 
relating them whenever there are natural points of contact. State the 
arguments for and against each plan. 

8. There is a strong movement in Europe at the present time to make 
more of the function concept, beginning even in the early stages of mathe- 
matics. What is the reason for this movement ? 

9. In certain communities much is being done at present to systematize 
the use of intuition in elementary mathematics. What does this mean, 
and how is the work being carried out ? 

10. With the new demand of woman for the same opportunities that 
man enjoys has come a demand for a serious study of mathematics. 
This is being best worked out in Germany just at present, but the demand 
must be met in America. What, in your opinion, should be the oppor- 
tunities offered the girl in secondary mathematics, and how, if at all, 
should the work be changed to meet her peculiar needs ? 

11. Is the calculus suited to the high school pupil in America? If 
so, where should it be taught, for what purpose should it be taught, and 
what should be its general nature and applications ? 

12. What movements have taken place intended to make secondary 
mathematics more interesting to the pupils, through recreations, mathe- 
matics clubs, the aesthetics of the subject, or through other agencies ? 
What steps would you advise in this matter ? 

REFERENCES 

Branford, B. a Study of Mathematical Education. Oxford, 1908. 
Carus, p. Foundations of Mathematics. Chicago, 1908. 
HiLBERT, D. Foundations of Geometry. Chicago, 1902. 
Russell, B. Foundations of Geometry. Cambridge, 1906. 
Smith, D. E. Teaching of Geometry. Boston, 191 1. 

Teaching of Elementary Mathematics. New York, 1900. 
Young, J. W. A. The Teaching of Mathematics. New York, 1907. 
The files of L'Enseignement Mathematique, of Schotten's Zeitschrift 
fUr mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht, and of 
other current educational journals of approximately equal rank. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 

HISTORY 

NATURE OF HISTORY. — History is concerned with the 
past life of man considered as a member of society. It is 
thus distinguished from biography, which deals only with 
individuals, and from anthropology, which treats of man 
as a unit in the animal kingdom ; but these distinctions are 
not absolute, for the history of the individual cannot be cut 
off from the society in which he hves, and no sharp line can 
be drawn between the natural history of man and his social 
history. In a looser sense history is often used to denote 
any succession of facts, as when we speak of the Kfe history 
of a plant or animal or the history of the solar system — an 
extension of the term which arises from the general adoption 
of the historical habit of thought, which looks upon all things 
in the universe, not as fixed and stable, but as undergoing a 
process of change. History comprises the whole period of 
the development of human society from the earHest ages for 
which evidence has been preserved, and includes the various 
manifestations of the human spirit in art, Hterature, and re- 
ligion, as well as the vicissitudes of states and their leaders 
and the course of economic and social evolution. Certain of 
these fields are commonly marked off for separate treatment, 
so that we have the history of language, of Hterature, of art, 
of reUgion, of philosophy, as well as the social and poUtical 
sciences which derive their material largely from historical 
records; but such a division is one of convenience only. 
None of these more special topics can be understood apart 

549 



550 Principles of Secondary Education 

from the general course of historical development, and only 
the historian can bring them into their proper relations as 
parts of the evolution of civilization. Before this broader con- 
ception of history the attempt to limit it to " past politics " 
is rapidly losing ground, but the life of the state, as the most 
important social group of civilized man, must remain prom- 
inently in the foreground of history, by reason of its in- 
trinsic significance and because on the whole it furnishes the 
most natural category for the classification of historical facts. 
History thus stands in especially close relations with political 
science and economics, not only because it furnishes them 
with the greater part of their materials, but also because it 
constantly needs their assistance in interpreting the social 
and political life of the past ; and for similar reasons it wel- 
comes the advance of any new sciences, such as comparative 
and social psychology, which promise to throw further light 
upon the social life of man. 

MATERIALS OF HISTORY. — Unlike the natural sci- 
ences, history cannot avail itself of experiment or of repeated 
observation. Except for the infinitely small body of informa- 
tion which has been acquired by his immediate personal ex- 
perience, the historian depends entirely upon indirect sources 
of knowledge, arriving at the facts of the past only by work- 
ing back from the existing traces which they have left behind 
them. These traces, the fountainhead of historical knowl- 
edge, are called sources. Originally limited to the oral tradi- 
tions handed down in song and story, and then including 
written material in the bare lists of early inscriptions and 
annals, the conception of what constitutes an historical source 
has widened with the growth of knowledge and with the 
enlargement of our ideas of the scope of history until it now 
includes, not only chronicles and public documents, but news- 
papers and private correspondence, buildings and pictures, 
ideas, customs, and superstitions, clothing and tools and 
implements and every sort of object from which information 



The Social Sciences 551 

respecting the human past may be derived. For purposes 
of convenience, sources are often classified into narrative, 
such as biographies, chronicles, and memoirs ; documentary, 
including laws, charters, and official acts of every sort ; liter- 
ary, so far as literature throws fight on the ideas and conditions 
of an age ; and archaeological, including the great body of 
monuments, works of art, and material remains. The use 
of these materials for historical purposes often demands 
technical knowledge of a very special sort, and a group of 
subjects has grown up which are often called the " auxiliary 
sciences " of history. Chief among these are language, as a 
means to the understanding of historical records ; palaeography, 
or the science of ancient writings ; diplomatics, treating of 
official documents ; epigraphy, or the science of inscriptions ; 
numismatics, archaeology, chronology, and historical geography. 
PROBLEMS OF TEACHING HISTORY. — The teaching 
of history, at least in the higher grades of instruction, is con- 
cerned with a body of knowledge, a point of view, and a method 
of inquiry. The body of historical knowledge is enormous 
and is constantly enlarged by the progress of historical in- 
vestigation as well as by the lapse of time ; and the problem 
of the teacher is, in the first instance, to select those facts 
v/hich will make clear the general course of historical develop- 
ment and contribute to an understanding of the periods and 
countries of special significance with reference to the world 
as a whole, and to the particular country and age in which 
the student lives. These facts must on the one hand be 
seen as actual reaHties, against their contemporary back- 
ground, while on the other hand they must be grasped, not 
as disconnected events or dates, but as bound together in 
certain relations and forming part of a continuous process of 
development. The student must learn that while the past 
is vitally connected with the present and can only be recon- 
structed by working back from the phenomena of actual ex- 
perience, it was never the same as the present ; and he must 



552 Principles of Secondary Education 

be taught to lay aside for the moment the ideas and standards 
of his own age in order to enter into those of the age he is 
studying. Impartiahty, sympathy, and imagination thus 
become necessary quahfications for the study and teaching 
of history, and the attitude toward the past which is thus 
attained is often called " historical-mindedness." One ele- 
ment in this is the critical spirit, and the general student of 
history finds it necessary to know something of the way the 
historian collects and tests his materials, while the special 
student requires initiation into the nature of historical evi- 
dence and the processes of historical criticism and construction. 
Such training is necessary, not only for the professed his- 
torian, but also for those who as investigators of topics in 
economics, political science, education, and the history of 
literature, art, or philosophy, are, often without realizing it, 
obliged to make use of the historical method of inquiry. In 
the earlier stages of historical instruction, attention is given 
particularly to the teaching of a few simple facts and the 
development of the historical imagination ; in the higher 
stages the number of facts increases, and more emphasis is 
put upon their relations and political and social significance, 
and upon the acquisition of a critical and impartial habit of 
mind; while in the most advanced grades of instruction the 
student learns to find, test, and combine his facts for himself 
until he is able to undertake independent research. 

THE CHOICE OF MATERIALS. ORGANIZATION OF 
THE COURSE OF STUDY. — The teaching of history in 
the secondary school presents two main problems : first, the 
relative amount of time which should be assigned to the 
subject, with the periods or kinds of history to which this 
time should be given; second, the methods of instruction. 
Each of these problems must be examined separately for the 
secondary and for the elementary school. History is a record 
of human experience, the rich variety of which is not indis- 
criminately valuable for children of all ages. The effort to 



The Social Sciences 553 

find answers to these questions of matter and method appears 
late in the development of educational systems. This is 
due mainly to the fact that not until the nineteenth century 
was the study of history well organized in the colleges. 

Growth of History in College and School Curricula. — 
History received its first recognition as a requirement for 
entrance to college in 1847. I^ ^^^t year Harvard prescribed 
Worcester's Elements of Ancient History, and the University 
of Michigan prescribed " Keightley's (or Pinnock's Gold- 
smith's) Grecian History to the time of Alexander the Great, 
and Roman to the time of the Empire.''^ For some years the 
requirement was associated somewhat closely with the older 
requirement in geography. Both at Harvard and at Michigan 
examinations in the two subjects were given by the depart- 
ment of history, and the questions set bear evidence of an 
intention to keep the two fields of knowledge related. Ameri- 
can history to the end of the Revolution was added by Michi- 
gan in 1870, and the classical requirements at Harvard were, 
during the next decade, occasionally increased by chapters 
from Freeman's General Sketch of European History. Cornell, 
founded in 1868, introduced at the beginning a requirement 
of Greek and Roman history. After 1870, the history require- 
ment gained steadily in favor, especially with the newer and 
smaller colleges. In 1895, o^t of a total of 475 universities 
and colleges investigated by the Bureau of Education, 306 
required American history; 127, general history; 112, 
Greek history; 116, Roman history; 57, English history; 
9, state and local history; and i, French and German his- 
tory. {Rep. Com. Ed., 1896-1897, p. 468.) The knowledge 
expected must, however, often have been the merest 
outline; for, as late as 1890, some of these institutions 
were still using in their own classes textbooks like Swinton's 
Outlines, Anderson's General History, and Barnes's United 
States. The diversity of subject matter required was prob- 
ably greater than in any other branch of instruction. 



554 Principles of Secondary Education 

Report of the Committee of Ten. — The first important 
step in the reform of these conditions was taken by the Madi- 
son Conference of 1892. The conference did not feel called 
upon to frame a definite system of entrance requirements, 
but its brief discussion of the problem and its recommenda- 
tions for the general improvement of history teaching in the 
schools suggested, directly or indirectly, the essential features 
of the system afterward adopted. The next important step 
was taken in February, 1895, in the appointment, by the New 
England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, 
of a committee of school and college teachers of history to 
deal with the special question of entrance requirements in 
history. The report of this committee, adopted by the 
Association in October, 1895, proposed a Hst of seven topics, 
each representing one year's work of three periods a week, 
and requested the colleges to accept any two of these topics 
as a required subject for entrance. The colleges were further 
reqi^ested to accept " any additional topic or topics from the 
list as additional preparation for entrance or for advanced 
standing," and to recognize as " a considerable part of the 
evidence of proficiency required " certain specified kinds of 
written work done in the secondary school. The report sug- 
gested that entrance examinations in history should be so 
framed as to require on the part of the candidate comparison 
and judgment rather than mere memory, and that they should 
include tests of geographical knowledge. The use of good 
textbooks, collateral reading, and practice in written work 
were to be presupposed. The seven topics were : (i) The 
history of Greece, with especial reference to Greek life. Litera- 
ture, and art. (2) The history of Rome ; the Republic and 
Empire, and Teutonic outgrowths to 800 a.d. (3) German 
history. (4) French history. [(3) and (4) to be so taught 
as to elucidate the general movement of medieval and modern 
European history.] (5) English history, with especial refer- 
ence to social and political development. (6) American 



The Social Sciences 555 

history, with the elements of civil government. (7) A de- 
tailed study of a limited period, pursued in an intensive 
manner. Three of these topics were in the course of study 
for secondary schools recommended by the Madison Con- 
ference. The other features are directly suggested in the 
conference report {Publication No. 5, New England History 
Teachers' Association, p. 13). 

These recommendations were indorsed, a few months 
later, by the Schoolmasters' Association of New York and 
Vicinity. The latter had, however, already proposed a con- 
ference on the whole question of entrance requirements, and 
such a conference had, on the invitation of Columbia, been 
arranged. It was attended by representatives from Harvard, 
Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, and Pennsylvania, and 
made its report on the first of February, 1896. The recom- 
mendations of the New England Association relating to 
written work and to examinations were adopted, practically 
without change. The principle of a choice of topics was also 
adopted, but the details were considerably modified. As ad- 
ditional preparation for entrance, or for advanced standing, 
the Columbia Conference proposed a second group of topics, 
each representing two years' work of three periods a week : 
(i) A course of Greek and Roman history for those only who 
have offered English history and American history as an 
elementary subject. (2) A course in English history and 
American history for those who have offered Greek and 
Roman history as an elementary subject. (3) A course in 
the history of Europe from the Germanic invasions to the 
beginning of the seventeenth century. (4) A year's study 
of any of the elementary fields not already offered as an ele- 
mentary subject, combined with a year's study of a limited 
period within that field. {Publication No. 5, New England 
History Teachers' Association, pp. 16, 17.) 

The Committee of Seven. — In the meantime, the Com- 
mittee on College Entrance Requirements appointed by the 



556 Principles of Secondary Education 

National Education Association in July, 1895, had been 
seeking the cooperation of organizations interested in the 
problem from the point of view of the special subjects. The 
response of the American Historical Association was the ap- 
pointment of the Committee of Seven, whose report, made 
in 1899, remains the standard document on the whole ques- 
tion of history in American secondary schools. In framing 
recommendations on college entrance requirements the Com- 
mittee of Seven recognized two things as essential : (i) " that 
the fundamental scope and purpose of the major part of the 
secondary schools be regarded " ; and (2) " that elasticity be 
allowed that schools may fit pupils for college and yet adapt 
themselves to some extent to local environment and local 
needs." {Report, 121.) A "unit" of history was defined 
as " either one year of historical work wherein the study is 
given five times per week, or two years of historical work 
wherein the study is given three times per week." The 
recommendations may be summarized as follows : (i) In- 
stitutions with a " system of complete options in college en- 
trance requirements " \e.g. Leland Stanford) were asked to 
accept 4 units in history " as an equivalent for a like amount 
of work in other subjects." (2) Institutions that prescribed 
certain studies and, in addition, required others from an 
optional list {e.g. Harvard) were asked to place i unit of his- 
tory on the prescribed list, and i, 2, or 3 units on the optional 
list. (3) Institutions with prescribed requirements only, i.e. 
" without options " {e.g. Yale), were asked to require at least 
I unit of history. (4) Institutions with several distinct 
college courses requiring different groups of preparatory 
studies for entrance {e.g. Michigan) were asked to require i 
unit of history for the classical course ; i unit for the Latin 
course ; 2 units for the scientific course ; and 3 units for the 
English course. {Report, 123-129.) The Committee of the 
National Education Association accepted these recommen- 
dations, but with the proviso that one year of American 



The Social Sciences 557 

history and government should be accepted as a requirement 
for admission by all colleges and universities. In a similar 
spirit the recommendation for a year of intensive study was 
qualified by the phrase, " especially of the United States." 
{Proc, N. E. A., 1899, pp. 648, 665.) At the present time, 
the units most widely recognized are the "blocks" or periods 
proposed by the Committee of Seven for a four-year course 
in secondary schools : (i) ancient history ; (2) medieval 
and modern European history; (3) EngHsh history; (4) 
American history and civil government. These are the sub- 
jects listed by the College Entrance Examination Board. 
The question of entrance requirements continues to agitate 
teachers of history. It is admitted that the action of colleges 
in recent years in increasing the amount of history that may 
be offered for entrance has tended to increase the amount of 
history taught in secondary schools, but its influence on 
methods of teaching remains questionable. Teachers still 
complain, as they complained in the days of the Madison 
Conference, that the present examinations compel the use 
of " bad methods for college preparation," and they are still 
urging, as the Madison Conference urged, " a change by which 
schools which use proper methods shall have some advantage." 

Recent Modifications. — The complete success of the 
movement for uniformity has been hindered by the conse- 
quences of the elective system introduced into the schools. 
Sometimes also the fact that many colleges have not given 
credit for more than one or two units of history has had a simi- 
lar retarding influence. An investigation made in 1909, prin- 
cipally of schools in the Middle West, showed, however, that 
out of eighty- three schools offering a three-year course fifty- 
six required all three units for graduation. 

Dissent from the recommendations of the Committee of 
Seven has usually been prompted by the desire to lay greater 
emphasis upon the modern period. In order to satisfy this 
desire a Committee of Five, partly of the same personnel, 



558 Principles of Secondary Education 

also appointed by the American Historical Association, ad- 
vised that schools ready to make a change should place Eng- 
lish history as far as 1760, with its European connections, 
in the second year and give the third year to a course on the 
last century and a half of European history. 

Modification of Course in New Types of Schools. — The 
recent development of commercial and technical high schools 
has rendered necessary a course adapted to their requirements. 
For them emphasis should be put upon the history of the 
arts and of trade. The interests of the two are also distinct, 
because, although the achievements of the Greeks and the 
Romans, and, in a measure, of medieval peoples, are instruc- 
tive to students of certain technical arts, students of com- 
merce will find the modern period the most important. Both 
should be taught to place the special aspects of life which 
they study in a true historical setting, while at the same 
time they should not forget other phases of history which 
explain the general growth of civilization. 

European Courses of Study and Programs. — In France 
and Germany the secondary school, lycee or gymnasium^ gives 
instruction in history throughout a nine-year course. The 
course corresponds to a possible course in our schools running 
from the fifth grade through the elementary school, the second- 
ary school, and up to the third college year. History is also 
given in elementary schools distinct from the lycee and the 
gymnasium, and is parallel, therefore, to the first part of the 
secondary school course. In the elementary school the con- 
tent is confined more exclusively to the national history and 
omits ancient history. The last seven years of the secondary 
course are divided into two cycles, one of four and one of three 
years, thus including two journeys through the field from 
ancient times to the present day. In the second cycle of the 
French course, if the pupil is on the classical side, i.e. has 
Latin and Greek, or Latin and the " living " languages, he 
devotes four hours to history, two to ancient and two to 



The Social Sciences 559 

modern ; if he takes the sciences with either Latin or the 
living languages, he devotes two hours to modern history. 
Except at this period of the course, the time given to history, 
both in German and French schools, averages three hours a 
week, and the work is closely correlated with geography. 

In England the average amount of time given to the sub- 
ject is two hours a week both in the preparatory years and in 
the secondary school proper. On account of the variety of 
t3^e in the organization of the English schools it is difficult 
to summarize the practice. The most authoritative recom- 
mendation is presented in Circular 599, published by the 
Board of Education in 1908, and includes, for the first stage, 
with children up to the age of twelve, stories from. the history 
of England and of other countries, centering about great 
characters like Charlemagne, Columbus, and Washington, 
as well as famous Englishmen ; for the ages between twelve 
and sixteen, a chronologically continuous course in English 
history with the European connections; during the final 
years, classical history for students going to the universities, 
English or modern continental history for others. The cir- 
cular records a gradual falling off in the practice of introduc- 
ing a special period for more intensive study, and argues that 
there should be judicious selection all the way through of 
incidents and characters for special emphasis. The circular 
also criticizes the concentric method by which in some schools 
the whole subject of English history is gone over each year 
summarily. In too many instances history is lumped in the 
program with " EngHsh subjects." The general influence of 
the type of questions asked in various public examinations, 
in competition for prizes, honors, etc., has been to retard the 
development of a plan of study satisfactory to the more pro- 
gressive teachers. 

From the practice abroad, as well as from the character of 
the efforts to promote the teaching of history in American 
schools, it is evident that the best opinion is in agreement 



560 Principles of Secondary Education 

upon the necessity of making the instruction continuous 
throughout the pupil's school career. Only by this means is 
it possible to form in his mind a useful framework of historical 
events and to train him to think of events historically. Time 
is also needed for the growth of interest and the formation of a 
habit of reading historical books. In the opinion of a recent 
French minister of public instruction the habit of reading his- 
torical books is an important element of the reading habit, 
which, next to the habit of observation, should be the aim of 
popular education, and without which the pupils are in danger 
of falling into illiteracy after they leave school. 

METHODS OF TEACHING.— Upon methods of teaching 
there is less agreement than upon questions of program, 
although for the attainment of the aims of the subject an 
effective method is more important than the choice of any 
particular period for study. If the method of teaching is not 
effective, the subject is discredited as an instrument of edu- 
cation. As the matter now stands, the statement that a 
pupil has had a course in ancient or medieval and modern 
history means much, little, or worse than nothing. The most 
urgent need of the present time is the adoption and the gen- 
eral practice of a well-considered method of teaching the sub- 
ject. In the management of subjects which are already well 
organized pedagogically, like EngHsh, chemistry, or Latin, 
teachers know what is expected the first month, the first 
term, the first year ; they realize what are regarded as the 
essential elements of a, good method. But the teacher of his- 
tory may confine his work wholly to the explanation of the 
paragraphs of the textbook, or he may assign selections for 
reading in other books, or he may also utilize collections of 
source material. He may train his pupils in the use of note- 
books or he may never allude to them. What he shall decide 
to do seems to depend generally upon his individual prefer- 
ence. The well-trained teacher is capable of solving the prob- 
lem for himself, but many others are groping about among 



The Social Sciences 561 

haphazard experiments or apathetically following methods 
sanctioned by local tradition. 

In Germany there is a recognized method of teaching his- 
tory. This is true of France also, although French teachers 
differ among themselves in regard to the function of the text- 
book. In Germany reliance is placed mainly on the teacher 
and the instruction is principally oral. Many teachers even 
object to the use of a notebook during a class exercise, because 
they wish the attention of the pupils concentrated upon what 
they are saying. By a process of questioning and repetition 
they work the facts Uterally into the pupil's mind, so that he is 
gradually enabled to construct so solid a framework of the 
past that it is serviceable for all his future work whether in the 
university or elsewhere. Books of simple outhnes, or Leit- 
faden, are used to supplement the oral work. So complete is 
the dependence upon the teacher that few or no references are 
given to historical works and there is slight use of selected 
sources. This has been criticized as not offering the pupil 
enough training for independent work in history and as being 
in one respect a poor preparation for the freedom of university 
work. Such reliance upon the teacher is possible only because 
of the thorough training insisted upon by the state in the case 
of every teacher. In both France and Germany the subject 
is intrusted almost wholly to special teachers. Although the 
French use the textbook more than the Germans, they gener- 
ally go over the lesson in a carefully prepared lecture which the 
pupils record in notebooks. The reason for this, when a 
textbook is also used, is the need of placing the right emphasis 
and of stimulating the attention. It is believed that by such a 
method the dull pupil obtains more than if he is expected to 
master without direction the topics assigned. The French 
do not make extensive use of selected sources or of other read- 
ing references. In England, with no central controlling au- 
thority, the methods of work show less uniformity than those 
of France or Germany, but where the subject is well taught it 



562 Principles of Secondary Education 

is likely to include excellent training in writing up topics on the 
basis of an intelligent use of reading references. 

European methods of teaching history should not be trans- 
ferred mechanically to American practice, but acquaintance 
with them emphasizes the value of a standard of work and 
directs attention to the elements of the problem. What may 
be suited admirably to the needs of the German boy in the 
gymnasium or the French boy in the lycee may not take suffi- 
cient account of the more precocious individuality of the 
American boy. An adequate method must be the outcome of 
a careful study of the child and a wise consideration of the 
benefits which he should derive from his work in history. 
The study of history should not merely give him a body of 
information, it should affect his attitude towards the world 
and train his mind for the successful search for certain kinds 
of truth. 

In the higher grades of the elementary school or the 
early years of the extended high school course the pupil 
should be enabled to form a picture, fairly accurate in its 
details, and in chronological order, of the principal events of 
American history and of its European background, in order 
that it may be a serviceable framework for later historical 
knowledge. More emphasis should be laid upon reading, in 
books furnished by the school library or by local public libraries. 
Some use can also be made of original sources, with the aim of 
illustrating facts easily within the comprehension of children 
of this age. Selections which illustrate two sides of a con- 
troversy, like that between Parliament and the colonies after 
1765, or between the North and the South before the Civil War, 
will train pupils who are beginning to read the newspapers 
to read more intelligently and with some effort of judgment. 
There should be practice in making simple maps, explaining 
geographically an historical situation. Outline maps may be 
used for this work. Pictures offer an opportunity not only for 
awakening interest, but also for giving training in observation. 



The Social Sciences 563 

The problem of method for the secondary school is more 
complex, because the element of training should receive greater 
emphasis. The most obvious requirement of a course is 
the mastery of the contents of the textbook. To attain this 
result there are needed, besides the ordinary recitation exer- 
cises, the preparation of outlines and summaries, the construc- 
tion of what the English call " date strips," and the preparation 
of reviews. The teachers most interested in the improvement 
of the teaching of history would add some reading from his- 
torical books other than the textbook, the study of selected 
sources of a simple and clearly illustrative character, and the 
making of reports upon topics with the use of several books 
of reference. There must also be the construction of maps. 
How many of these exercises the individual teacher may be 
able to embody in any particular course depends upon the 
special conditions of the school, that is, the amount of other 
work demanded of the teacher, the existence of a school or 
pubHc Hbrary, the number of available historical maps, etc. 
Each exercise should be repeated at least once, because the 
first attempt serves principally to make clear the difficulties. 
There should be orderly progress in the manner of work from 
the beginning to the end of the course. The pupil is studying 
history in order to learn how to study history as well as to 
acquire a body of historical facts. Each exercise should have 
relation to the preceding and to what is to follow. 

The teacher's first task should be to construct a calendar 
of the course, apportioning the work of each day, and indicat- 
ing at what stage any particular exercise is to be attempted. 
An examination of the textbook will show what topics are 
adequately treated and upon what topics there must be sup- 
plementary oral explanations or informal lectures. It is ap- 
parent that an exercise in constructing summaries should be 
inserted after an epoch of marked characteristics has been 
studied. Upon the completion of the study of a long and com- 
plex process an outhne, chronological or topical, will be useful. 



564 Principles of Secondary Education 

Teachers may wish to use a simple outline for each day's 
work, but the construction of such outlines should not be 
required of all the class every day, for this work would soon 
become mechanical and wearisome. A review of the geographi- 
cal relations of the subject will show at what points illustrative 
maps should be constructed. Certain topics should be studied 
partly through the medium of pictures. If there are to be 
reports on long readings, the place of these will be determined 
by the interest of the topic or incident and the availability of 
books on the subject. The same is true of topical studies, of 
which there should not be more than two or three during the 
particular course. The results of these exercises should be 
embodied in the pupil's notebook. They should be written 
on sheets of paper which may be inserted without copying in a 
loose-leaf notebook. The pupil will need careful instruction 
upon the manner of preparing this written material for the 
notebook. 

The teacher may not be able to insert upon the calendar 
more than an indispensable minimum of exercises, because 
such exercises require efhcient supervision, and the burden 
upon the average teacher is already heavy. The way to meet 
the difficulties of the situation is to agree upon what this indis- 
pensable minimum includes and from it as a basis work 
steadily toward the desirable. 

VISUAL AIDS TO TEACHING HISTORY.— An excellent 
description of special aids to the visualization of history, embrac- 
ing the United States and the principal countries of Europe, was 
published in the History Teacher's Magazine oiFehuiary, 1910, 
and can now be obtained in pamphlet form from the McKinley 
PubHshing Co., Philadelphia, for ten cents. There is also 
available a classified catalogue of similar scope prepared by a 
committee of the New England History Teachers' Association, 
and published by Houghton Mifflin Co., at fifty cents. 
Both of these contain price lists and names of makers, pub- 
lishers, and dealers. The extensive German material is more 



The Social Sciences 565 

fully listed, with prices but without names of makers or pub- 
lishers in the Verzeichnis der bewdhrtesten Lehr- und Auschau- 
ungsmittel fur Hdhere-, Mittlere- und Elementarschulen issued 
from time to time in Leipzig by K. F. Koehler. Copies of this 
can usually be purchased for fifty cents. It should be noted, 
however, that Koehler accepts orders for material only when 
sent through regular dealers. Special circulars descriptive of 
the remarkable Rausch models are sent gratis on application 
to Friedrich Rausch, Nordhausen a. Harz, Germany. The 
aids of special practical interest to American teachers of 
history, and the question of how to use them, form the subject 
of several chapters in Johnson's Teaching of History in Elemen- 
tary and Secondary Schools. 

CIVICS 

THE TERM CIVICS. — The term "civics" is now generally 
employed to refer to the teaching of civil government in our 
elementary and secondary schools and in colleges. The term 
" civil government," which was formerly very commonly used 
for describing this study, has been abandoned, because in its 
interpretation it was usually narrowed down to a study of the 
mere framework of government. The word " civics " is said 
to have been introduced by Henry Randall Waite (see Standard 
Dictionary), and has the advantage over the term " civil 
government" in that it is now generally understood to include : 
(i) ethics, or the doctrine of duties in society ; (2) civil polity, 
or governmental methods and machinery ; (3) history of civic 
development and movement. 

Like most subjects outside of the three R's in the elemen- 
tary school curriculum, and the classics and mathematics in 
the secondary school course of study, the subject matter of 
civics was not taught in schools until some years after the 
middle of the nineteenth century. 

INTRODUCTION INTO THE SCHOOLS. — The study 
made but slow progress in the schools, though the need of it 



566 Principles of Secondary Education 

was urgently felt because of the ever increasing immigration 
of foreigners to American shores. As most of the colleges 
gave little or no instruction in political science, they took no 
steps toward making it an entrance requirement. After 1870 
the subject began to find its way gradually into the elemen- 
tary schools. 

In 1895 appeared the Report oj the Committee of Fifteen of the 
National Education Association on the subject of Elementary 
Education. This committee recommended in connection with 
the subject of United States history that there should be given 
a study of the outhnes of the Constitution for 10 to 15 weeks in 
the last year of the elementary school. In 1897 the Commit- 
tee on Rural Schools of the same Association made a report 
recommending a course in United States history and civil 
government for normal school teachers who were to teach in 
the rural schools, and made some suggestions about teaching of 
morals and civics in such schools. In 1899 the Committee of 
Seven of the American Historical Association — a committee 
appointed at the instance of a Committee on CoUege Entrance 
Requirements of the National Education Association — made 
an elaborate report on history in the schools. They recom- 
mended that the fourth year of the high school course be 
devoted to American history and civics, and that the two 
subjects be taught in separate courses where it was possible 
to get the time. Where this was not possible, the committee 
advised teaching them together. 

The high schools generally pursued the latter method in 
order to save time, with the result that the civics work was 
mainly in the nature of constitutional history. Very little 
attention was given to the other elements of civics : the 
duties of citizenship and government in its actual workings. 
Because of the failure of the colleges to require a knowledge of 
civics for entrance, very many schools neglected the subject 
almost wholly. In 1904 the New England History Teachers' 
Association published a syllabus upon the lines laid down by 



The Social Sciences 567 

the Committee of Seven, and made the same recommendations 
in regard to civics. This tendency to treat civics as the " poor 
relation " of United States history and to make its treatment 
only one of constitutional development met with strong op- 
position in the Association of History Teachers of the Middle 
States and Maryland, in the North Central History Teachers' 
Association, in the New England History Teachers' Associa- 
tion, and in the associations of teachers of various states. 
Vigorous protests were made against considering the history 
of an institution the same as the study of an institution in its 
actual working to-day. 

The results of the agitation of the opponents of a combina- 
tion course resulted in the appointment of a Committee on 
Civics of the New England History Teachers' Association, and 
of another by the American Political Science Association. The 
preliminary sheets of a syllabus were published by the first 
association in 1908, and the second association published a 
report in the same year calling for a separate course in civics 
in the last year of the high school and recommending the 
making of the subject a college entrance requirement. 
Throughout the report there is a strong insistence on that 
view of civics which makes it a study of government in its 
actual working — national, state, and municipal. The Na- 
tional Municipal League has been actively engaged in promot- 
ing the study of municipal civics in the schools, and in its 
proceedings of 1905 it presented a syllabus for such instruction 
in both elementary and secondary schools. So far the recom- 
mendations have had little effect. The schools of Cleveland, 
Ohio, have had an admirable syllabus drawn up for use in this 
subject, and the High School of Commerce in New York City 
has established a course in Municipal Activities. 

PRESENT STATUS. — Notwithstanding the great activ- 
ity of civic bodies and teachers' associations in all parts of the 
country, civics as a subject in the schools is still in a very 
unsatisfactory condition. In spite of the emphatic statements 



568 Principles of Secondary Education 

of various committees, it is still taught in the form of con- 
stitutional history, and the pupil gets little notion of the way in 
which the government is actually being carried on at the pres- 
ent time. In the elementary schools of Boston and vicinity 
no attention is paid to it until the last year, though vague 
statements are made at times that " civil government shall be 
taught throughout the course in history." In the last year 
provision is usually made for the study of the Constitution. 
In New York City in the elementary schools the syllabus calls 
for lessons in civics beginning with the fourth grade, and these 
run through the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. In 
the absence 'of a detailed syllabus the work is not as well 
carried out in some schools as it is in others. The city of 
Cleveland has prepared the best syllabus for civics in the ele- 
mentary schools. It begins in a very simple way in the third 
grade, and is carried through the balance of the eight grades. 
In the Latin schools of Boston and vicinity the subject is 
virtually non-existent. In the high-schools it is optional in the 
third year, and sometimes required, as in Cambridge. When 
optional it is seldom taken. In New York City and vicinity 
the course in civics is a part of the course in American history, 
and is required for graduation. 

Between the two extremes represented by these locahties 
there are varying conditions, but in the large majority of the 
schools where the subject is taught at all it is given as an 
adjunct of history. As far as statistics can be gathered, it 
may be stated that approximately one fourth of our secondary 
schools give no training in civics at all, about one half com- 
bine it with American history, and about one fourth give a 
separate course in it. 

At the present time a Committee of Five of the American 
Historical Association is working on a revision of some of the 
recommendations of the Committee of Seven, and has made a 
preliminary report in which a separate course and a separate 
examination in civics in the fourth year of the high school 



The Social Sciences 5^9 

course is recommended as required. In New York State va- 
rious committees and civic bodies are at work on the subject, 
and the same is true in many other states. From such activity 
it is probable that much more substantial courses in civics 
will be offered in elementary schools and high schools within 
the next decade than have ever been offered before. 

METHODS OF TEACHING. — The earhest advocates 
of the teaching of civics in the schools had in mind a method 
of instruction which should give to pupils a knowledge of the 
framework of government as it was outHned in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. This was the idea of Daniel Read 
and of the National Teachers' Association. From the resolu- 
tions passed by that body in 1869 it is evident that it thought 
that instruction in civics consisted in teaching " the principles, 
the structure, and the history of our PoHtical Institutions." 
Moreover, the study was to be taken up in connection with 
United States history, and for this purpose the Constitution 
of the United States was appended to the grammar and high 
school histories published in the seventies and early eighties. 
In the body of the texts almost nothing was given concerning 
constitutional government or the working of the local, 
state, or national institutions. About two thirds of each text 
was taken up with the colonial period, and the emphasis 
throughout was laid on picturesque narration. 

For civic instruction the method consisted in giving the 
pupils the Constitution to read or to commit to memory. No 
illuminating material on the actual working of our institutions, 
national, state, and local, such as could have been found in 
De Tocqueville, was presented, — a fact no doubt due to the 
absolute inability of the teachers. This mere " cramming " 
on the Constitution was felt to be unsatisfactory, and though 
the study of government was still largely conducted by such a 
method and felt to be indissolubly connected with the study of 
United States history, small texts were published in the 
seventies containing the clauses of the Constitution with 



570 Principles of Secondary Education 

comments on them. Such texts were not generally put in the 
hands of the pupils, but were of aid to the teacher. This 
method of study of the dry bones of our institutions con- 
tinued until the middle eighties, when Jesse Macy of the Uni- 
versity of Iowa published his small text entitled Our Govern- 
ment. This was an attempt by a competent writer to change 
the prevailing method of instruction in government, and to 
put interest and life into the mere framework by showing the 
actual workings. Attention was not confined to the national 
government, as had been the almost general custom in the past, 
but considerable time was given to the consideration of local 
and state governments. In 1888, with the appearance of 
Bryce's. American Commonwealth, the revolutionizing of the 
methods of instruction was made possible. With this monu- 
mental work on our government in its actual workings before 
them, the writers of school texts began gradually to change 
their methods of treatment. Slowly and almost impercepti- 
bly the texts on civics began to treat of actual government. 
The committing to memory of the Constitution and the dry 
commentary on its clauses began to give way to a study of 
government as actually carried on. 

Such a change in method, however, was not by any means 
general. In most of the schools, grammar as well as high, the 
average instruction given was usually nothing more than a 
mere " cramming " on the Constitution. Texts still continued 
to be written which were nothing except dry commentaries on 
the clauses of the Constitution, and the texts determined the 
methods of instruction. It was only in a few of the most 
progressive schools that good instruction in civics was given. 

Meanwhile a very decided change had taken place in the 
character of the textbooks on United States history. More 
and more space was given to the constitutional and institu- 
tional aspects, and the idea was thus perpetuated that all 
necessary instruction in civics could be given through the 
medium of history — a separate text or course for civics not 



The Social Sciences 571 

being considered necessary. This method of instruction in 
the grammar schools and high schools was favored because it 
" saved time " and because of the conditions surrounding 
college entrance examinations for which the high schools 
largely prepared. Most of the colleges gave either very indif- 
ferent instruction in government themselves, or none at all. and 
had taken no steps toward demanding a knowledge of civics for 
entrance. This prevailing method of instruction gave to the 
pupils scarcely anything more than a knowledge of constitu- 
tional history. This was to a certain extent encouraged by the 
Report of the Committee of Seven of the American Historical 
Association, 1899, for though recommending a separate text 
and course in civics it left it open for the schools to believe that 
the study could well be carried on without such. 

Objections to this method of instruction were frequently 
heard from teachers and superintendents, but it was not until 
the Committee on Civics of the New England History Teachers' 
Association, 1909, and the Committee of Five of the American 
Political Science Association, 1909, made their reports that 
the issue was squarely made that instruction in civics in 
schools should be on the actual working of our government and 
that the methods to be employed should be such as to give 
something more than constitutional history, and should be 
through the medium of a separate course. The Report of the 
Committee of Five of the American Historical Association on the 
revision of the Report of the Committee of Seven, 19 10, seems 
to agree with the reports of the two committees mentioned 
above. 

Some schools already have in operation distinct courses in 
civics, though in the larger number of schools throughout the 
country the older methods of instruction still prevail. In those 
schools where the separate course is given there are two ways in 
which it is conducted : (i) in some the course comes after the 
course in United States history, and (2) in others it is con- 
ducted parallel with it. Those who favor the first method 



572 Principles of Secojtdary Education 

maintain that it is necessary for the pupil to know the history 
before he is able to understand the government in its actual 
working at the present time ; and those who favor the second 
say that by the parallel method much time is saved by avoid- 
ing unnecessary repetition and that a better opportunity is 
offered for taking up current topics because of the longer 
period during which the course is studied. 

In the best high schools of to-day a course in civics is given 
which has devoted to it 5 hours a week for 20 weeks or 3 hours 
a week for 40 weeks. A substantial text is placed in the hands 
of the students, and also a fair number of special works on the 
federal, state, and local government. Not only is the govern- 
ment of the United States studied, but its institutions are 
compared with those of European governments — the most 
effective results being derived from comparison. Each student 
is called upon to present reports both oral and written on 
topics connected with this comparative study. 

In connection with the course a close study of the newspapers 
and magazines is made for current poKtical happenings, and 
the students are called upon to give three-minute extem- 
poraneous talks on political events both at home and abroad. 
The material gathered is put on bulletin boards, pasted in 
scrapbooks, and used in civic and debating clubs. Govern- 
ment reports, journals, legal forms, and material of an alHed 
nature are consulted in the libraries. Visits are made to 
the meetings of legislative bodies, courts, and committees. 
Though the course outlined above is far from being in general 
use, it is becoming more and more common. 

The activities of the National Municipal League have been 
responsible for the introduction in some city schools of special 
courses in municipal government. Sometimes this course is 
placed in the last grade of the grammar school or the first year 
of the high school. The method of teaching is largely induc- 
tive. The pupil is called upon to look about him for answers 
to certain questions given by the teacher and to come to the 



The Social Sciences 573 

class prepared to report. The pupil in a way is thus the maker 
of his own textbook. This, simple course of instruction is 
supplemented in the last year of the high school with older 
pupils by studying the causes for the failures and successes of 
municipal government at home and abroad. 

In the most modern methods of teaching civics, the idea that 
the subject should be used to teach patriotism and to drag out 
moral lessons has been abandoned. The aim has been reduced 
to the purely practical one of developing good citizens, 
intelUgent as to their duties, knowing wherein the government 
is good or bad, and able by virtue of their intelhgence concern- 
ing better conditions prevailing elsewhere to try to improve 
their own institutions. 

ECONOMICS 

INTRODUCTION INTO THE SCHOOLS. — This subject 
has been defined as the study of that which pertains to the 
satisfaction of man's material needs, ^ — ^the production, preser- 
vation, and distribution of wealth. As such it would seem 
fundamental that the study of economics should find a place 
in those institutions which prepare children to become citi- 
zens, — the elementary and high schools. Some of the truths 
of economics are so simple that even the youngest of school 
children may be taught to understand them. As a school 
study, however, economics up to the present time has made far 
less headway than civics. Its introduction as a study even in 
the colleges was so gradual and so retarded that it could 
scarcely be expected that educators would favor its introduc- 
tion in the high schools. 

Previous to the appearance, in 1894, of the Report of the 
Committee of Ten of the National Education Association on 
Secondary Education, there had been much discussion on the 
educational value of the study of economics. 

Since then the subject of economics has gradually made 
its appearance in the curricula of many eastern high schools. 



574 Principles of Secondary Education 

It has been made an elective subject of examination for 
graduation from high schools by the Regents of New York 
State, and for admission to college by Harvard University. 
Its position as an elective study, however, has not led many 
students to take it except in commercial high schools, because 
in general it may not be used for admission to the colleges. 

Its great educational value, its close touch with the pupils' 
everyday Kfe, and the possibihty of teaching it to pupils of 
high school age are now generally recognized. A series of 
articles in the National Education Association's Proceedings 
for 1 901, by Spiers, Gunton, Halleck, and Vincent bear witness 
to this. The October, 1910, meeting of the New England 
History Teachers' Association was devoted entirely to a dis- 
cussion of the Teaching of Economics in Secondary Schools, 
and Professors Taussig and Haynes reiterated views already 
expressed. Representatives of the recently developed com- 
mercial and trade schools expressed themselves in its favor. 

Suitable textbooks in the subject for secondary schools have 
not kept pace with its spread in the schools. Laughlin, 
Macvane, and Walker published books somewhat simply 
expressed ; but later texts have been too collegiate in character. 
There is still needed a text written with the secondary school 
student constantly in mind, and preferably by an author who 
has been dealing with students of secondary school age. The 
methods of teaching mutatis mutandis have been much the 
same as those pursued in civics. The mere cramming 
of the text found in the poorest schools gives way in the best 
schools to a study and observation of actual conditions in the 
world of to-day. In the latter schools the teacher has been 
well trained in the subject, whereas in the former it is given 
over only too frequently to teachers who know little more 
about it than that which is in the text. 



The Social Sciences 575 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What aspect of history — cultural, political, institutional, etc. — 
is preferable for high school study ? 

2. To what extent is the source material method desirable or possible 
in the high school ? 

3. What are the purposes of the study of history in the high school ? 

4. To what extent should the study of history be connected with the 
study of civics ? How can this connection be best made ? 

^ 5. What relations can or should be established between the study of 
history of the United States and the study of economic problems ? 

6. What are the best materials of study for United States history ? 

7. Can "critical study" of historical problems be developed in the 
high school ? 

8. What are the tests or the principles involved in a good history text- 
book for high school ? 

9. What are the principles involved in an examination in history? 
What kind of questions should be asked ? 

10. What advance was made in the Report of the Committee of Seven 
upon the Report of the Committee of Ten ? 

11. What advance upon the Report of the Committee of Seven, by 
subsequent reports ? 

12. What advantages are involved in the new classification or de- 
limitation of historic periods ? 

13. What kind of history should be taught in the new vocational 
high schools ? 

14. What are the merits of the course of studies followed in the 
European secondary schools as compared with those of the American 
high school ? 

15. What are the merits of the methods used in European schools as 
compared with those of the American high school ? Of the textbooks ? 

16. To what extent should visual aids to teaching be used in history ? 

17. What topics in the subject of economics can be treated in the 
high school ? 

18. What methods and materials of study are appropriate for high 
school work in economics ? 

19. Outline a course of study in economics for the high school, using 
local materials and problems as a basis. For civics. 

20. How can the study of civics be made to function directly in train- 
ing for citizenship ? 

21. What are the advantages and disadvantages of interesting the 
pupil directly in local political, economic, and civic problems ? 



576 Principles of Secondary Education 

REFERENCES 

History 

Allen, J. W. The Place oj History in Education. London, 1909. 
Andrews, C. M., Gambrill, J. M., Tall, Lida L. A Bibliography of 

History for Schools and Libraries. New York, 1910. 
Association of History Teachers of the Middle States and Maryland. 

Annual Minutes, from 1903. 
Barnes, Mary Sheldon. Studies in Historical Method. Boston, 1896. 
Bliss, W. F. History in the Elementary Schools; Methods, Courses of 

Study, Bibliographies. New York, 191 1. 
Bourne, H. E. The Teaching of History and Civics in the Elementary 

and Secondary School. New York, 1910. 
Committee of Eight, Report of the, to the American Historical Associa- 
tion. The Study of History in the Elementary School. New York, 1909. 
Committee of Five, Report of the, to the American Historical Association. 

The Study of History in Schools. New York, 191 1. 
Committee of Seven, American Historical Association. The Study of 

History in Schools. New York, 1899. 
England Board of Education. Teaching of History in Secondary Schools. 

London, 1908. 
Farrington, F. E. French Secondary Schools, Chap. XL New York, 

1910. 
Hearnshaw, F. J. C. Teaching of History by Means of Local Records. 

Educ. Times (London), Vol. LXV, February, 191 2, pp. 59-60. Con- 
tains also Report of Annual Meeting of the Historical Association. 
Hinsdale, B. A. How to Study and Teach History. New York, 1893. 
Historical Association. Leaflets. London, from 1906. 
Indiana University Bulletin. History Teaching in High School. Bloom- 

ington, 1909. 
Jager, O. The Teaching of History. Tr. by H. J. Chaytor. London, 

1908. 
Johnson, H. History in the Elementary School. New York, 1908. 
Keatinge, M. W. Studies in the Teaching of History. London, 1910. 
Langlois, C. V. Manuel de Bibliographic historique. Paris, 1901-1904. 

and Seignobos, C. Introduction to the Study of History. Tr. by 
/ G. G. Berry. New York, 1898. 
Aiace, W. H. Method in History. New York, 1903. 
^ McMurry, C. a. Special Method in History. New York, 1903. 

New England History Teachers' Association. Historical Sources in 

Schools. New York, 1902. Syllabus for Secondary Schools. 

Boston, 1904. Various publications since 1897. 



The Social Sciences 577 

New York State Education Department Bulletins. Course of Study and 

Syllabus for the Elementary Schools. Syllabus for Secondary Schools. 

Albany, 19 10. 
North Central History Teachers' Association, Proceedings, from 1899. 
Report of a Conference on the Teaching of History in London Elementary 

Schools. London, 191 1. 
Rice, Emily J. Course of Study in History and Literature. Chicago, 1897. 
Russell, J. E. German Higher Schools, Chap. XV. New ed.. New York, 

1905. 
Salmon, Lucy M. Some Principles in the Teaching of History. 

Chicago, 1902. 

Civics 

Andrews, C. M., Gambrill, J. M., Tall, Lida L. A Bibliography of 
History. New York, 1910. 

Bourne, H. E. The Teaching of History and Civics. New York, 1902. 
At the beginning of each chapter this book gives extended bibliog- 
raphies. 

ScoREL. N. E. A. Proceedings, 1899. 

Welling. N. E. A. Proceedings, 1903. 

Wyer, J. I. A Bibliography of the Study and Teaching of History, com- 
piled in Volume I of the American Historical Association Proceedings 
for 1899, pp. 559-612, particularly on p. 593. 

Sample chapters of an Outline for the Study of American Civil Govern- 
ment, published by the New England History Teachers' Association, 
also have good bibliographies. 

The published proceedings of the various associations mentioned in 
this article contain, in addition to the reports referred to, numerous 
articles on civics and its place in the curriculum. 

The Atlantic Educational Journal published during 1 908-1 909 a bibli- 
ography of history for teachers and is going to add to it material for 
civics. 

Economics 

Clow, F. R. Economics as a School Study, in the Economic Studies of 
the American Economic Association for 1899. An excellent bibliog- 
raphy is given. It may be supplemented by articles or addresses 
since 1899 which have been mentioned above. New York, 1899. 

CossA, L. Introduction to the Study of Political Economy; tr. by L. Dyer, 
London, 1893. 

Haynes, John. Economics in Secondary Schools. Education, February, 
1897. 



CHAPTER XV 
FINE ARTS AND MUSIC 

ART IN EDUCATION. — A study of education in its earlier 
forms, not only in savage communities, but in a civilization as 
advanced as the Athenian, reveals the great role played by 
the arts. Anthropological investigations have confirmed the 
obvious educational influence by showing the great part played 
by the arts in the life of the community and in determining 
progress. Psychology adds to these convictions the fact of 
the fundamental character of the impulsive tendencies which 
are the physiological origin of the activities that lead to the 
arts. All of these facts are opposed to the common assumption 
that the arts represent a kind of educational luxury and super- 
fluity. 

Classification of the Arts. — Various classifications have been 
made of the arts, — they have been subdivided into the spatial 
and the temporal, arts of rest and motion, of the eye and the 
ear, etc. However correct for their own purposes, these 
divisions are educationally defective in that they start from 
art products rather than from the psychophysical acts from 
which these products originate. More significant from the 
educational point of view is the classification of Santayana 
according to which arts are distinguished into those that 
spring from automatisms, i.e. organic or " spontaneous " 
movements which, when rhythmically ordered and accom- 
panied by intensified emotion, themselves constitute acts, 
and those in which the movements, even if similarly induced 
originally, terminate in effective enduring modifications of 
natural objects. The dance, pantomime, song, music, etc., 

578 



Fine Arts and Music 579 

belong in the first class ; the second class Santayana terms 
"plastic," including in.it architecture, sculpture, painting, 
and design. 

Principles underlying Art in Education. — Anthropological 
and historical inquiry have fairly established the following 
principles : first, that art is born of primary impulses of human 
nature when the activity, whether automatic or plastic, has 
social value ; second, that this social value is conferred by the 
tendency of the activity or its product to spread an emotional 
mood favorable to joint or concerted action. Otherwise 
put, the arts, in their origin, tended to contagion or com- 
munication of an emotion, that produced unity of attitude and 
of outlook and imagination. From this point of view, no 
sharp line divided the fine and useful arts from each other. 
Any useful object — a piece of pottery or of weaving, an imple- 
ment of hunting — that provokes social reminiscences and 
anticipations attaches contagious emotions to itself, and 
acquires aesthetic quality. The marked distinction between 
useful and fine arts is chiefly a product of slave labor or of 
commercial production, making things for a market, under 
circumstances where the factor of shared emotional life is 
eliminated. 

Another significant trait of the arts in their simple and more 
natural form is the prominence of the festal element. Tribal 
dances are the background out of which music, poetry, and 
the drama all gradually differentiated. These pantomime 
dances were either occasional or ceremonial, i.e. they were 
either community celebrations of more or less choice episodes 
happening to attract general attention, or else were stated and 
recurrent celebrations of important tribal traditions and cus- 
toms, attaching to changes in the season, return of food ani- 
mals, gathering of crops, war expeditions, etc. 

Some of the educational bearings of these considerations, 
psychological and ethnological, come out conspicuously in the 
older Athenian education. Music (in the Greek sense) and 



580 Principles of Secondary Education 

gymnastic were, in general, and in many of the details of their 
educational use, very direct outgrowths of the role of the 
dramatic and communal arts of more primitive societies. 
It is not difficult to detect in Plato's treatment of gymnastics 
in the Republic and the Laws the fact that dances, etc., 
originally associated with industrial and military crises in the 
life of a people, had become so saturated with elements of 
rhythm, measure, and order, and with social memories and hopes, 
as to present great value in the training of the young ; while 
music was frankly a vehicle for carrying what was of typical 
or idealized value in the traditions of the Greek people, by 
enhancing their emotional value so that they would deeply, 
though unconsciously, modify the character of children's 
tastes and Hkes and dislikes in the direction that reason would 
later consciously approve. 

If we attempt to summarize the meaning for present educa- 
tional practice, of the facts mentioned in this brief summary, 
the following points stand out clearly : 

Arts are Essentials in Education. — i . There has been great loss 
in relegating the arts to the relatively trivial role which they 
finally assumed in schooling, and there is corresponding 
promise of gain in the efforts making in the last generation to 
restore these to a more important position. Viewed both 
psychologically and socially, the arts represent not luxuries 
and superfluities but fundamental forces of development. 

Expression precedes Appreciation. — 2. Instead of aesthetic 
appreciation, the sense of beauty, etc., coming first and leading 
to artistic expression in order to satisfy itself, the order is the 
reverse. Man instinctively attempts to enhance and perpetu- 
ate his images that are charged with emotional value by some 
kind of objectification through action. The outcome inevita- 
bly is marked by certain factors of balance, rhythm, and con- 
structive order, and by the function of representation, i.e. of 
recording in some adequate way the values to which emotions 
cling. The sense of beauty, or aesthetic appreciation, is a 



Fine Arts and Music 581 

reflex product of this attempt at production. A product 
which is objectively crude but which represents a genuine 
attempt at embodiment of an experienced value of unusual 
emotional quaUty, is more Hkely to be an effective means of 
cultivating taste and aesthetic sensitiveness than the presen- 
tation for passive appreciation of much more perfect works 
produced by others.- The latter are indispensable, but their 
function is to serve as models which will stimulate to apprecia- 
tion of crudities and imperfections that may be refined away, 
and will enlarge the emotional images out of which personal 
expression springs. In the end, the great majority of pupils 
are of course to become appreciators of art rather than its 
producers in any technical sense. But only by taking some 
part in creative production (and that not for the sake con- 
sciously of producing beauty but simply of embodying vital 
and significant feehngs) can a wholesome and natural attitude 
of appreciation finally be secured. 

Social Actimties jurnish the Starting Point. — -3. The social, 
or communicable, character of the emotions from which aes- 
thetic expression naturally springs, emphasizes the values of 
joint experiences and actions of a more or less domestic nature. 
Group activity of a joyous character celebrating some event 
or fact of common value is the natural soil of artistic creation 
in the school as well as out. 

Artistic Expression Natural to Children. — 4. Expressive 
activity is also especially adapted for educational use in that 
the separation, so usual with adults, between the utilitarian 
and the artistic does not naturally exist for these. In the 
absence of economic pressure the measure of use is simply 
value contributed to the enhancement of individual and 
group fife. Cooking, even such seemingly utihtarian things as 
setting a table and serving a meal, easily take on for children 
an artistic value so far as they represent a consciousness and 
commemoration of things to which children attach a vague 
social significance, all the more potent because in its vagueness 



582 Principles of Secondary Education 

it represents the mysterious and attractive world of adult life. 
The separation of the externally and technically useful from 
emotional and imaginative enrichment is unnatural psycholog- 
ical divorce, and one of the chief functions of the arts in educa- 
tion is to maintain the natural union of the socially important 
with that which makes strong emotional appeal. 

LiteraturethemostGeneral Art for School Purposes. — ^5. Liter- 
ature is probably the art most generally available for school 
purposes. In order that it may be a genuine art it is necessary 
that it be presented as a consummation and perfecting of 
factors which the child already appreciates as having value. 
This means that it is not so much a point of departure for 
instruction as it is a focus in which other factors gather 
together in a vivid and ordered way. Literature is not to be 
used as a means for any other end than this gathering together, 
in a vital and readily appreciated way, of scattered and 
inchoate elements of experience. It is not, for example, to be 
made a means of moral instruction or consciously impressing a 
specific moral lesson. It is ethically important simply because 
it presents, in a form easily grasped and likely to be enduring, 
values which are themselves felt to be intrinsically important. 
Any attempt at definite formulation and impressing of these 
values and the kind of conduct they require is certainly detri- 
mental to the literature as art, and is very likely to be harmful 
to the moral influence which the values might exercise, if left 
undisturbed in their proper medium of feeling and imagination. 
The same principle holds, of course, of methods that utilize 
literature simply as a means of teaching grammar, information 
about the history of literary men, antiquities, or any of the 
diverse topics which have been hung upon Hterature as upon 
a peg. 

METHODS OF TEACHING ART. — Methods of teaching 
art depend upon the conception of art held and upon the pur- 
poses for which the subject is introduced into the curriculum. 
If the purpose is to interest the pupil in nature or to develop 



Fine Arts and Music 583 

the power of observation, or the power of coordinating ideas 
and hand manipulation, as is often stated, no strictly aesthetic 
purpose is involved and a type of method wholly different 
from those adopted for the development of artistic apprecia- 
tion is appropriate. Again, the conception of art, whether it is 
imitation of nature or the expression of harmonies of form, 
tone, and color, has a deciding influence on the type of method 
adopted. 

The Two Methods. — Individuals vary and modify the de- 
tails of their methods of teaching, but all art instruction can 
be classified under two heads according to the point of view 
and the principles involved. These systems are radically dif- 
ferent in character, affecting the entire make-up and conduct 
of courses of study. They are, respectively, the academic 
(analytic), the structural (synthetic). The academic method 
is a reflection of the professional art school. Its origin may be 
traced to the later Renaissance. The method is traditional 
and scientific, making the acquirement of knowledge of nature's 
facts the first step and the foundation of all progress. The 
pupil learns to draw, but defers expression until he has at- 
tained proficiency in representation. The process is imitative, 
and the standard external. The structural is a return to the 
natural method of pre-academic days. It was the method 
practiced in Europe from ancient times down to the Renaissance, 
and is still used by the Orientals and by all who are independ- 
ent of scientific domination. The approach is through struc- 
ture, — the building up of harmonies of shape, tone, and color, 
— and the purpose is the development of power in the indi- 
vidual. Self-expression begins at once, involving all forms of 
drawing, and leading to appreciation. The process is creative, 
and the standard is individual judgment as to fine relations. 

The Academic Method. — The academic method is truly 
analytic, teaching the pupils " to see," to gather fact upon 
fact, to store up knowledge, to acquire skill. Its analogue is 
the old way of teaching language through grammar, rather 



584 Principles of Secondary Education 

than through use of the language. Self-expression in terms of 
line, tone, and color is deferred, and appreciation is only a by- 
product. It brings about a somewhat sentimental view of ex- 
ternal nature as the source of all art. Whistler's remark that 
'' nature is seldom right " was a blow at this false standard. 
Critics of the academic school must refer all excellence to 
nature. For example, they interpret Greek art in terms of fact 

— making the study of the bodies of athletes the source of 
artistic power. They measure Japanese art, not by quahty, 
but by truth and perspective. This imitative and scientific 
system is derived from the eighteenth-century academies and 
is being followed in our modern academies of art. It owes its 
origin to the late Renaissance, when creative power was feeble 
and interest in the sciences dominant. Because one of the 
greatest of all artists, Leonardo da Vinci, was possessed of 
boundless curiosity and sought the secret of nature with toil- 
some persistency, his followers concluded that the pursuit of 
truth was the basis of art study. Leonardo himself, like all 
the masters of the Renaissance, was trained by apprenticeship 

— in fact, by a structural method — to strive for quahty and 
mystery and power in expression. His genius controlled his 
scientific instruction, and he built all his knowledge into his 
art fabric. 

Continuing the traditional scientific scheme, the academic 
method in these days requires that schools and courses of in- 
struction be highly speciaHzed. The relation of object draw- 
ing, cast drawing, light and shade work, and still-life painting, 
to mural decoration, house furnishing, costume, handicraft, 
and the industries is not very clear. It is often forced — for 
example, the naturaHstic flowers in full modehng repeated over 
wall paper, carpets, and china with no reference whatever to 
any principle of design. The processes and subjects of aca- 
demic teaching are good in themselves, but the emphasis is in the 
wrong place. The tendency is to make art in schools either a 
pretty accomplishment or an adjunct to some business pursuit. 



Fine Arts and Music 585 

The Structural Method. — The structural method disregards 
the theories of the eighteenth-century academicians, and 
ignores their division of the subject into representative and 
decorative art. Instead of setting up external nature as the 
standard, the action of the human mind in harmony building 
becomes the foundation for study. The elements of space art 
are shape, tone, and color, the whole visible world being re- 
vealed in these terms. Education in space art follows the 
analogy of music and Uterature, beginning with structures 
of a simple order — ■ a few Hnes, a few sounds, a few words — • 
and proceeding onward by steady growth. Rhythm, subor- 
dination, symmetry, proportion, tone values, color schemes are 
fundamental to all the arts, at least* by analogy. From this 
point of view design, instead of being classed as " decoration," 
is seen to be the very primer of art. Nature's beauties are 
cases of accidental harmonic structure, to be copied not as a 
mere exercise, but because they are beautiful and the study 
of them increases capacity for appreciation, or because they 
suggest motives for design. 

Synthesis (self-expression) is the center of effort, with the 
sciences as aids. The fine arts of architecture, painting, and 
sculpture have been developed from industries, not from 
nature or the bodies of athletes. The beginning and the end 
is the relation of forms to spaces, not the copying of anything. 
Greek art, from its earliest to the best period, is an effort in 
composition — the purpose being to attain finer and finer 
relations of Hne and space. When the artists turned their 
attention to copying facts (human bodies), Greek art dis- 
appeared. The same may be said of Italian art, of textile 
design, and of Gothic art. 

What we call art springs from a desire to make things " look 
well." The raw materials may be put together in a rude way, 
for mere use, or may serve a higher use by being put together 
in a fine way, satisfying a strong desire of human nature. 
This finer way means ability to make the best choice — and 



586 Principles of Secondary Education 

this comes from the trained judgment. The history of art 
development shows that whenever the workers constantly 
improved upon proportion, tone, and color, there was growth 
into fine art. The simple process of adapting forms to spaces 
began with painting on clay bowls and carving the handles 
of utensils or weapons — and ended in the Greek sculptures, 
the Gothic cathedral, the mural painting. There was no 
distinction between art and industry, between representative 
and decorative art. 

A course of structural art teaching begins with simple forms 
of creative work, the pupil drawing upon all nature and all the 
art of the world for examples. Representation and the sciences 
become aids to self-expression rather than preliminary exer- 
cises, as under the academic system. There is opportunity for 
immediate application in industry, handicraft, home decora- 
tion, and costume. 

The structural method of art teaching, though comparatively 
new in the United States, is not new as a principle. The old 
system of apprenticeship taught art in practically this form. 
Art is studied in this way in Japan. The Japanese, however, 
have introduced the academic system in some of their schools, 
and the two are conducted side by side. It is significant that 
designers for the great Japanese industries of lacquer, metal, 
and textiles are trained by the pure Japanese (synthetic) 
method. The art of Persia, India, Turkey, China, in fact of 
the whole Orient, is a higher form of industry, developed with- 
out copying nature or historic styles. In the United States 
the art teaching in professional schools has followed largely the 
academic method. Normal art courses for the training of 
teachers have been until recently thoroughly academic, the 
subjects being object drawing, life drawing, water-color paint- 
ing (still-life, figure, landscape), pen-and-ink, perspective, 
anatomy, etc. The inadequacy of this and the feeling that 
art training must be something more than pastime, together 
with the increased interest in industrial education, have forced 



Fine Arts and Mtcsic 587 

synthetic methods into many of the normal schools, adding to 
the academic courses composition in line, dark-and-Hght, and 
color, and studies in art appreciation. 

The Two Methods in the Schools. — The structural method 
is now found side by side with the academic in many schools, 
passing under the name of design or composition. These two 
influences are reflected in the art teaching in the public schools, 
with the academic in the ascendant, though evidently losing 
ground from year to year. The old rigid copy books and the 
type forms have given way to nature drawing, mass painting, 
and illustration. These, however, tending to put art among 
the pastimes, cannot hold the monopoly. Design, with its 
stimulating application in industry, and the new thought of art 
teaching as a development of power, have introduced new 
problems and caused the study of spacing, dark-and-hght, and 
the apphcation in manual training to have more prominence. 
In the yearly exhibitions of school art the academic influence is 
seen in mass painting, blotty landscapes in color, dictation 
exercises in landscape, pose drawing (figures not in action), 
illustration in crayon, water color, and cut paper. The 
structural influence appears in designs (for panels, book covers, 
pages, posters), massing in two and more values, landscape in a 
few flat tones, illustrations for books, color schemes, pottery, 
baskets, bookbinding, wood and metal construction, brush 
drawing, pencil drawing, painting in flat tones with or without 
outline. Wood block printing upon textiles and paper has 
been extensively adopted in elementary and secondary schools 
and in art schools, as a method of studying composition of 
pattern and of making experiments in color harmony. 

DESIGN AS THE SUBJECT RELATING FINE ARTS 
TO PRACTICAL ARTS. — The relation of the fine arts to 
the practical arts is made on the educational side through the 
subject of design. The form of the fine arts most generally 
found in the schools is that of design. This is because it has 
both the practical and the artistic relations and values, and 
because it has the widest appeal. 



588 Principles of Secondary Edtication 

As related to the arts, design usually implies the planning 
of the form, structure, and decoration of objects so that they 
shall satisfy utilitarian and aesthetic demands. The degree to 
which an object fulfils these demands determines the excel- 
lence of its design. The conditions which meet the utilitarian 
demands are obvious ; namely, that the object shall adequately 
fulfil its purpose. The aesthetic demands are more complex, 
and generally include utility and the beauty which results from 
pleasing proportions and outhnes, appropriate treatment of 
material, and suitable decoration. 

Industrial Design. — In the constructive arts the utilitarian 
demand has first to be considered. Until this is met as com- 
pletely as possible, it is difficult to find in ornamentation any 
permanent enjoyment which at all compensates for the dis- 
satisfaction arising from imperfect fulfilment of purpose. 
Attempts to beautify inadequately planned or constructed 
objects by profuse decoration give an impression of effort 
misdirected. For example, a chair which is uncomfortable is 
poor in design. Expensiveness of material and richness of 
ornament or technical excellence of construction cannot com- 
pensate for failure to fulfil the function of a chair, a failure 
which prevents lasting pleasure in whatever formal beauty 
may appear in the details. Closely related to this utilitarian 
consideration is the pleasure in fine craftsmanship which is not 
content with a crude construction barely sufficient to meet the 
needs, but which demands also a mastery of tools and processes. 
The satisfaction that arises from the contemplation of an ob- 
ject which adequately fulfils its purpose and is well constructed 
readily transcends the crude stage of relief because a need is 
met, and develops into pleasurable appreciation of the fact 
that intelligence has shaped raw material into an effective 
creation by means of clear understanding of its purpose and 
perfect mastery of the materials. This contemplative appre- 
ciation of a well-constructed object which perfectly fulfils its 
purpose is an aesthetic satisfaction, and thus in industrial 



Fine Arts and Music 589 

products utility and excellence of workmanship appear as the 
primary elements of good design. 

Design in the Fine Arts. — The conditions which satisfy 
the aesthetic demands for formal beauty appear to be as follows : 
Beauty of proportion and outhne is one of the chief requisites. 
Experimentation with the possibiHties of different relations of 
proportions and areas, for example in placing a given number of 
windows in the front of a house or determining the position 
of a title to be printed upon a book cover, shows some positions 
to be so much more pleasing than others that it leads to a 
definite choice. An analysis of the results generally discovers 
a consistent thought, not monotonous interrelation of meas- 
ures, in the case of the pleasing proportions Experimenta- 
tion with curves shows also that some give greater pleasure 
than others, and that in the most pleasing forms the variations 
of curvature are consistently related. Thus the standards of 
excellence in proportions and outlines appear to be based, not 
upon fashion, but upon universal and permanent reasons. 
An understanding of the mathematical nature of the relations 
of measures upon which good proportions and curves depend 
is not necessary to an aesthetic enjoyment of these forms. 
One may become trained to discriminate almost unerringly 
between fine proportions and those that are commonplace, 
without knowing why the results are pleasing, or that any 
calculable relation exists. The response appears to be im- 
mediate in terms of enjoyment, and the adjectives " good " 
and " bad " as used by the designer with regard to propor- 
tions and curves are meaningless except in terms of pleasure 
awakened. 

After the demand for utility has been met, the next impor- 
tant condition of excellent design is this of good proportions 
and fine outline. The opportunities offered by the arrange- 
ment and refinement of necessary parts of the structure itself 
should be utilized to the full before ornament is added, for in 
the placing and shaping of essential features hes the greatest 



590 Principles of Secondary Education 

possibility for beauty. For example, in the instance of the 
chair which has been so planned as to fulfil all the demands of 
utihty such as strength and comfort, there is abundant oppor- 
tunity, without transgressing these, to vary the position of 
braces and panels and the shape of the back and arms and legs 
so that pleasing proportions shall result. These same essential 
parts may also be so modified as to give the chair a consistent 
character throughout. It may be soHd and heavy, or light and 
delicate, and yet still outlined by straight Hues, or it may 
repeat curves of a particular sort. When the interest of a 
skilled and artistic workman continues beyond the satisfaction 
of utilitarian demands, and he hngers over his work, experi- 
menting with its proportions and outUnes till they show the 
same character throughout, the object gains an individuahty 
which is the basis of style. When the object is one of a kind 
which the builder repeats indefinitely, he is able to embody 
in each successive product the hints gained by previous experi- 
ments, and gradually to perfect a type. Where many .artisans 
are at work in the same Hne, a still more thorough exploration 
of the possibihties of a given theme occurs. Thus styles of 
architecture, furniture, metal work, etc., have developed. 

The same interest that leads to utilizing to the full the 
possibilities of beauty in the proportions and outUnes of the 
necessary structural elements frequently influences the artistic 
craftsman to carry the manipulation of his product still 
further, by playing with and echoing its nature and structural 
features by such treatment as calls forth the beauty of the 
materials ; for example, the grain or polish of wood and the 
color or texture of metal, sometimes making even the tool 
marks a decorative feature, as in hammered metal or carved 
wood. This interest finds expression also in ornamentation 
which emphasizes and perfects the style, or symbohzes the 
history, use, or surroundings of the object. Such ornament is 
not an accidental or unrelated addition to an object, but an 
essential expression and organic part of it. Such decoration 



Fine Arts and Music 591 

as this is clearly differentiated from that sort of ornamentation 
which results from inability to respond to the stimulus of a 
perfected idea and which therefore depends upon the barbaric 
love of heterogeneous collections unorganized by any domi- 
nating thought, resulting in a competition of interests. Good 
design in ornament is not assured by mere technical excellence. 
For example, an Indian's head may be realistically painted 
upon a vase, but neither has any organic relation to the other, 
and neither enhances the beauty of the other. They are 
competing artistic interests accidentally juxtaposed, and 
therefore poor in design. 

Good industrial design demands that an object adequately 
fulfil its purpose, that its workmanship be skillful and its 
construction sincere, that the possibilities of beauty in the 
materials and in orderly and consistent arrangement and 
shape of necessary parts be utilized to the full, and that 
ornament where used shall be a fulfilment or reenforcement 
of the idea of the object. 

Relation of Design to the Arts of Representation. — In 
painting and sculpture the utilitarian demand is not so evident 
as in the industrial arts, but is still a prominent element of 
excellence. The mural painting should primarily be a paint- 
ing designed for the wall in a sense that is not fulfilled by merely 
suiting its dimensions to those of the wall and its subject to 
the surroundings. The technical treatment, the qualities of 
color, and the disposition of Knes and areas must conform to 
the mural idea. Even the apparently independent easel pic- 
ture is not at best advantage if it must be made with no 
regard for its permanent location. Statuary is usually re- 
quired to be an integral part of an architectural or landscape 
setting. Some correspondence exists between the subject of a 
painting or piece of sculpture which determines the kind of 
response it seeks to awaken, and the ultilitarian purpose of an 
article of industrial art. The appropriate purposes of arts of 
design are those which cannot be so well accomplished by 



592 Principles of Secondary Education 

literature or music, and are those which depend for their effect 
not only upon what things are represented, but largely upon 
such an arrangement of them as shall result in the formal 
beauty of consistently related areas, balanced masses, pleasing 
flow of line, and harmonious color. The artist must be suffi- 
ciently master of his facts to justify his courage and be con- 
vincing when he uses natural material for his own creations, 
but he must also understand design, or his creation will lack 
the quality which justifies a modification of facts as presented 
by nature and distinguishes a work of art from a photograph 
or cast from nature, namely, that a work of art is the embodi- 
ment of a human idea. 

Place of Design in Education. — The purpose of a study of 
design in education is to develop the desire and capacity to 
enjoy beautiful things, to establish standards of taste, to raise 
the Eesthetic sense from the level of response only to those 
accidental stimuli which are powerful enough to arrest and 
hold attention without effort, to an appreciation of what gives 
increasing pleasure because of elements that are permanent 
and universal. Such training should result in new sources of 
enjoyment for the individual, and in a higher standard of in- 
dustrial products. The production of a great amount of raw 
material is not so valuable an outcome of civilization as the 
ability to convert raw material into the highest grade of 
finished product. 

Present School Conditions. — Design has a large place in the 
elementary and secondary schools of nearly all countries prom- 
inent in education. Individual towns and cities, even in the 
same country, often vary greatly in their methods, but perhaps 
the most significant and general difference in methods in the 
United States as compared with other countries is that in the 
schools of the United States the chief emphasis is usually laid 
upon the exercise of originality from the earliest years, while in 
most other countries a broad acquaintance with the best design 
of the past and a thorough training in drawing from nature and 



Fine Arts and Music 593 

historic ornament is generally insisted upon as a necessary 
foundation for originality. In the schools of the United States 
design has in the past been largely in the field of ornament 
worked out according to the principles of formal beauty, and 
used, if at all, as decoration applied to completed objects. 
Probably this has been true because design has been taught 
so frequently by a department having no organic relation with 
that which has taught constructive work. On this account the 
teachers of construction have emphasized the phase of design 
relating to utility and technique, while the teachers of art 
have given chief attention to that relating to the formal beauty 
of isolated shapes. Under these circumstances the relation of 
ornament to structure and that other important phase of 
design, namely, the possibilities for beauty that lie in the dis- 
position of structural parts even where no decoration is used, 
have often been overlooked. The study of unrelated principles 
of formal beauty, however, is gradually giving way to an ac- 
quaintance with concrete problems which embody all phases of 
design and offer opportunity to give to each the consideration 
warranted by its relative value. 

The study of design usually begins in the lowest grades and 
continues through the high and normal schools. The prob- 
lems are increasingly those related to actual conditions in 
school, home, and community. The lines of study may be 
generahzed as follows. A consideration of the utilitarian 
conditions which the problem must meet, experimentation 
with the forms involved, to discover the best shapes and 
arrangement, appropriate ornamentation in form and color, 
and study of the best available examples. The phases of! 
design which emphasize simple decoration with repeated 
forms, as in borders and surface patterns, are considered as] 
best adapted for the youngest children. Those which calli 
for original judgment as to utihty and fornial beauty and 
harmonious color demand increased maturity .^v.. 

In England and in the leading European countries emphasis 

2Q 



594 Principles of Secondary Education 

is laid upon the relation of the arts of design to the industries 
of the country. The present trend appears to be toward 
developing originality in design. The directing idea under- 
lying this tendency is that design develops best, not when the 
mind depends largely upon its spontaneous activity, but 
when it is furnished with the widest possible knowledge as a 
fund of suggestion. The acquaintance with the best examples 
and the training in drawing as a means of securing data are 
much more thorough than in the United States, and design is 
more intimately related to the industries of the country. The 
British and European attitude toward the teaching of design 
is suggested in the definitions of its purpose made by the British 
Department of Practical Art in 1852, which have not been 
departed from, and which are practically true for other Euro- 
pean countries, (i) General elementary instruction in art as 
a branch of national education among all classes of the com- 
munity, with the view of laying a foundation for correct judg- 
ment both in the consumer and the producer of manufactures. 
(2) Application of the principles of technical art to the im- 
provement of manufactures, together with the estabhshment 
of museums by which all classes may be induced to investi- 
gate those common principles of taste which may be traced 
in the works of excellence in all ages. 

MUSIC TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLS. — The motive 
that has placed music in the school curriculum has been pri- 
marily a humanitarian or social one. There are two reasons 
for this. The first is negative, due to the fact that the tech- 
nique which the practice of music develops serves no pur- 
pose outside the art itself. In this respect it is unlike 
drawing, for example, which, while serving as a basis for the 
fine arts, trains the eye and hand in ways that are valuable for 
the scientific student as well as the artisan. The second and 
the positive reason is that music lends itself, especially in con- 
certed work, more perhaps than any other human form of ex- 
pression, to arousing and expressing a common social feeling. 



Fine Arts and Music 595 

For this reason it has constantly been looked upon by the 
schools as an excellent activity for developing and manifesting 
school spirit. 

Recent Tendencies towards a Broader Use and Appreciation 
of Music in the School. — The tendency in modern education 
to demand standards and scientific results for what is done 
would seem at first glance to militate against the increase of 
musical activity in our schools. This perhaps is true about 
secondary schools that make the preparation for college their 
sole aim, but where the secondary school is fulfilling its own 
task in our educational system, the tendency to broaden the 
field of music is very evident. 

Instrumental Music. — First, with reference to new work, 
a recognition of the value of instrumental music is growing 
rapidly. School boards are buying the necessary instruments 
for carrying on successful bands and orchestras — instruments 
that are essential to such organizations but are not valuable 
from a solo point of view and hence would not be likely to be 
bought by pupils themselves. For instance, Oakland, Califor- 
nia, has bought some $6000 worth of band instruments and has 
over twenty-two amateur bands in its schools. The Los 
Angeles school authorities are reported as investing $10,000 in 
musical instruments. Brookline, Massachusetts, at the other 
extreme of our country, has a number of the necessary orches- 
tral instruments as part of the equipment of its high school ; 
and simultaneously in many parts of the country, especially 
in the West, a like encouragement of instrumental organiza- 
tions is going on. 

But this is not all. Further encouragement is given by the 
offering of credit as well for work done. Minneapolis, for 
instance, gives credit for practice on orchestral instruments if 
the pupil takes at least one lesson a week and attends two 
school rehearsals and plays at school functions. Not only 
this, but in many schools, such, for instance, as in Lincoln, 
Nebraska, private piano and violin lessons, when meeting the 



596 Principles of Secondary Education 

standard set up by the school, are credited as part of the re- 
quired work of the school. This makes it possible for a tal- 
ented high school student to keep up his technique and at the 
same time get a general education. 

Parallel with this widening use of music is the increased 
attention being paid to historical and appreciative courses, 
having for their main feature the use of the mechanical means 
that have recently put within the reach of communities so 
much of vocal and instrumental music that would not have 
been possible a few years ago. The study of the folk songs 
and music of a country is now being correlated in a most ef- 
fective way with its geography, literature, and social organiza- 
tion, and music is thus serving a truly cultural purpose, wider 
than it has ever been possible for it to do before. More inten- 
sive still, but limited to a smaller number of students, are the 
new courses in composition which are taking the place of the 
old-fashioned harmony classes and giving opportunity for 
talented students to discover their abihty in composition. 

Singing. — While the work described in the above courses is 
greatly widening and intensifying the influence of music, the 
main aim, after all, in the teaching of school music is to develop 
the singer ; for in the vocal apparatus we have an instrument 
that is under the perfect control of practically every one and 
needs but little work, compared with the playing of instruments, 
to make such ability effective in chorus singing. The chief 
obstacle for the singer has been the reading of the musical 
notation. There is little doubt of the prime importance of 
this subject, but unfortunately there is a tendency to make 
skill in sight reading the ultimate test of musical instruction in 
schools. The accomplishment of such a standard often pre- 
vents the necessary practice for both tone quaUty and rendi- 
tion that the broader view of music teaching would demand. 
Not only this, music is also a literature, and it is of prime im- 
portance that students who have spent more or less time on 
music study in the schools during eight to twelve years should 



Fine Arts and Music 597 

have at least a small but choice repertoire of fine songs that 
they really know how to sing well, and so thoroughly learned 
that they will not be dependent on the printed page any more 
than is the concert singer or player. Unfortunately, such 
work demands individual attention and musical capacity on 
the part of the teacher, and where much of the work has been 
done by teachers of other subjects, this artistic side of music 
teaching has been necessarily neglected. It is, however, a 
hopeful sign of educational development that with the broad- 
ening of the scope of music there is also an increasing demand 
for greater aesthetic values as the result of its study. In 
view of the practically universal scope of vocal music in the 
schools, the consideration of the methods employed will deal 
primarily with this aspect of the subject, especially as the 
part of the work that deals with the structure and notation of 
music is equally important for the player of an instrument and 
the student of appreciation and composition. 

Methods in School Music. — Methods in music teaching 
deal with two kinds of activities : (i) What is necessary for 
producing the music, such as the control of the instrument, or 
voice, and the understanding of the notation. (2) What is 
done under the term of " nuance," popularly called " expres- 
sion," and the slight notation that indicates it. The first 
may be said to deal with the structure of music, the second 
with its interpretation. It is obvious that the first application 
of a method in music will be to produce tones, following which 
there will be a constant effort toward control for expression. 
This is especially true for the instrumentalist. Even the voice 
teacher spends the first few years in what is called " voice 
placing," practice for producing a good singing tone, before 
he does much with song interpretation. 

In teaching school music, however, this order of activities is 
reversed. The voice in most children, through the exercise of 
speech, is already under wonderful control. So the aim of 
school music is not to produce professional singers with de- 



598 Principles of Secondary Education 

veloped voices, or professional players, but to cultivate a taste 
for music by good singing and to prepare the individual to 
aid in the social uses of music. Consequently, it is better to 
commence with rote songs, or singing by imitation. Two 
things are thus of special importance in school music : (i) the 
pupil must know how to render many fine songs in order to 
develop his taste and appreciation ; and (2) he must be able 
to read from notation. 

Interpretation. — Learning songs and learning how to sing 
them expressively in school is largely carried on through 
imitation. The pupil is required to match or imitate the model 
tones given as well as the style or way in which the songs are 
sung. Supporting this work, the thought of the text and the 
character of the melody are brought home to the student's 
mind. Thus his feeling for the thought and the character of 
the song aids in getting the quality and rendering desired. 
Besides this work, vocal habits are developed in the pupil 
based on the distinction between chest and head tones. The 
former are what the child or youth largely employs in his 
play, and there is a natural tendency to do the same in music. 
But when sustained pitch is attempted with this register above 
B in the middle of the treble stafT, the tone becomes hard, and 
the vocal mechanism strained. The head tone that the child 
naturally uses when singing above D of the fourth line of the 
treble staff is clear and sweet. Vocal method in school music 
is largely concerned in strengthening this upper head tone and 
developing it downwards. For this reason most teachers 
agree that scale practice and technical work should commence 
with the upper part of the voice, with the head tone, bringing 
this quality down as far as possible, and, that the lower tone 
should be sung softly, developing by constant practice an 
automatic control of the voice. Thus, the first method in 
school music deals largely with musical interpretation, and 
consists in: (i) imitation of a good example; (2) attention 
to the thought of the composition, both text and style; (3) 
development of clear head tones. 



Fine Arts and Music 599 

Struchire. — We turn now to the second element in learning 
to read music. The instrumentalist, by the time he has 
learned to play, has associated the action necessary to produce 
the tones with the notes on the staff that represent these tones, 
so that when he sees the note, he can produce the tone. He 
can thus, unfortunately, especially if he is unmusical, avoid 
the necessity of thinking music. The mental process of such a 
person consists in thinking the physical motions necessary to 
produce the tone called for by the note, but not the tone itself, 
which he only hears as the result of his action. On the other 
hand, the singer has no definite movement in his throat that 
he can associate with a given note on the staff. F and F sharp 
feel the same to him. The singer is obliged to learn his nota- 
tion, not by connecting it with the actions that produce the 
tones, but by connecting the notation with the way the tones 
sound. The first few tones heard tend to establish a key to 
which all the tones that follow are related, the task of the 
singer being to associate these tone relationships with the nota- 
tion that represents them. His mental process, instead of being 
connected with the physical movement necessary to produce 
the tone, is a thought process ; for he must hear mentally the 
sound that the note represents before he can produce the tone. 

As in interpretation the starting point here also lies in imita- 
tion. Tone progressions, such as scales or simple songs, are first 
learned by imitation. These are then sung in connection with 
their notation, until an association is formed between what is 
sung and what is seen. Such association is not as simple as it 
seems, for the notation of music presents three dift'erent kinds 
of tonal relationships : pitch, duration, and metrical grouping. 
It is through the combination of these three kinds of relation- 
ships that the pupil is able to form a concept of the musical 
movement of his tune. The problem here is essentially the 
same as that of reading language. From what the notes in- 
dicate, the pupil's mind must be capable of forming concepts 
of the musical movement sufiiciently far ahead of what the 



6oo Principles of Secondary Education 

voice is producing not to interfere with the even flow of the 
music. Unhke language, the signs and notes that represent 
these relationships are not grouped into musical units as let- 
ters are combined into words standing for the same idea in 
whatever combination the words may appear. Every musical 
unit has its own peculiar combination. The music reader 
must think these musical units by combining the separate 
relationships that go to make them up. The most complex 
part of the training, and the one that requires the closest 
attention in the methods employed, is concerned with the 
problem of rapid conception of the tune from its notation. A 
musical child will often make his associations between the 
appearance of the notes upon the staff and the movement of the 
music, so that he is able to read music fairly well, without 
being able to tell definitely the separate intervals of duration 
and pitch, representing the musical thought. 

Key. — The large majority of people, however, need help in 
associating the position of the tones in the keys with the notes. 
Such a device we have in the famous do, re, mi, or syllable names, 
dating back to the eleventh century, and attributed to Guido of 
Arezzo. This association is made possible when the key is 
established, the tones of the scale taking on certain charac- 
teristics. Since, therefore, a certain syllable is always sung 
to a certain tone in the key, when the sign for a syllable is 
written, it suggests the relative tone in the key it represents. 
The principle underlying this use of the syllable names had a 
revival in France under the leadership of Pierre Galin, a music 
publisher of the early nineteenth century, who indicated the 
relationship of tones by numbers. In England John Curwen 
utilized the sound names attributed to Guido. In the system 
thus developed, called the " Tonic sol-fa," the fixed pitch 
representation of the staff was ignored, and the first letter of 
the syllables, do, re, mi, etc., was printed instead of numbers; 
for example, d, r, m. The spacing of these letters indicated the 
duration of the tones. These letters, like the numbers, drew 



Fine Arts and Music 60 1 

attention to the relationship of the sounds to be sung, and not 
to any given pitch, and is evidently a vocalist's notation. 

The American methods follow the English usage. Some 
places even adopt the Tonic sol-fa notation as an introduction 
to sight reading. But the ordinary practice is to use the 
syllable names with the staff notation. This brings about a 
complexity that does not exist where the syllables are used 
with the Tonic sol-fa notation. For reading by note requires 
a student of harmony to determine the proper relative name 
from the fixed notation that the staff represents, especially in 
modern music, which tends to be more and more chromatic, 
and makes it difficult to determine what the exact key rela- 
tionship of a tone is. Another difficulty grows out of the con- 
stant use of the Tonic sol-fa names, especially where the syl- 
lable names have been too slavishly used. The tendency is to 
associate the tone to be sung not simply with the sight or 
sound of the name, but with its actual physical production, so 
that the pupil is able to sing the tune if he can sing sound 
names, but is unable to think the tune apart from the names. 
In order to avoid this difficulty many schools use numbers 
instead of sound names. The objection to this is that the 
number names do not lend themselves to good tone production, 
and this method, when too closely followed, is open to the same 
objection as the use of the sound names. The chromatic 
tendency of modern music above referred to is making these 
methods less and less effective. 

Interval. — Besides thinking of tones in their relation to key, 
we may think of them as determined by their distance from 
each other as intervals of seconds, thirds, and fourths hav- 
ing certain common characteristics. When this has been 
thoroughly grasped, one is enabled to sing these distances by 
thinking the nature of the interval. Mr. Samuel Cole of the 
New England Conservatory in his sight singing course has 
given specific names for each interval. By always using the 
name with the interval whenever it occurs, associations are 



6o2 Principles of Secondary Education 

formed between the interval character of tones and the name, 
so that, when the interval name is thought, the tones occur to 
the mind. 

Rhythm. — The teaching of duration and time grouping of 
tones does not present such a variety in the methods employed. 
The demand on the pupil, unlike that of thinking pitch rela- 
tions, is identical for both singer and player. A few fundamen- 
tal differences in tone lengths are used over and over, whatever 
the key, although confusion is caused to young students by 
changes in the note used to represent the beat. This diffi- 
culty is being reduced, there being a tendency among pub- 
lishers to use uniformly a quarter note to represent the beat 
in simple time. Besides beating the time, other physical move- 
ments for strengthening the feeling for pulse in music are being 
employed in a more varied way. 

In Europe much interest has been awakened by the work of 
M. Jacques Dalcroze, who has developed a remarkable feeling 
for rhythmic character through dancing and gesture. Move- 
ments of the march and folk dance are advocated for develop- 
ing rhythmic feeling as a support for musical work. 

Present Procedure. — The pressure of more and more studies 
in the school is tending to lessen the time given to singing. A 
fair average allotted to this subject is one hour a week. This 
is sometimes given in two half hours, sometimes in fifteen- 
minute periods. This hour is often supplemented by another 
period of music work and general exercises. The music study 
period generally commences with some breathing exercises, 
followed by scale and vocal practice. Then technical matter 
pertaining to notation is followed by reading new music or 
exercises, and the lesson ends with a review of familiar songs. 

In the first stages, whether in elementary or high schools, 
learning songs by imitation, or " rote singing," as it is called, is 
largely emphasized, and in some schools this is carried on in 
diminishing extent through subsequent grades. This makes it 
possible to introduce a great deal of excellent music, which 



Fine Arts and Music 603 

might otherwise be too difficult to read. On the other hand, 
those schools employing sight reading do little rote work after 
the first year, paying much more attention to the singing of 
exercises intended to improve sight reading. This procedure 
reduces the artistic musical material used, but tends to increase 
the proficiency in reading. In either case, much depends upon 
the amount of individual work demanded from the pupils. 
The great difficulty in accompHshing any thorough teaching 
along ordinary lines lies in the fact that music is universally 
taught collectively, thus reducing the individual responsibihty 
to a minimum, so that students can go through years of school 
work, and at the end be unable to give the simplest description 
of what they have done. 

New Tendencies. — The new trend in modern education is 
bringing about a decided change in the attitude toward the 
popular teaching of mucic. This change in aim puts the 
emphasis not so much on what is taught as on what the pupil 
can do with what he is taught. The point of interest is the 
pupil rather than the subject. Under this new influence the 
teacher aims to make the tone quality, the dynamics, the 
pronunciation, and the musical form, as to both pitch and 
rhythm, grow out of one central thought, — the expression of 
the feeling suggested by the words of the song. The child 
must sing it in a way to show that he realizes the significance 
of what he does. 

But this is not all ; the child must not only make the musical 
thought of another his own, but he must have experience in 
expressing his own poetic and musical thought, not that in 
so doing he can express anything of value for others, but for 
the sake of the musical development both in thought and taste 
that such practice brings about. It is parallel to theme 
work in the teaching of the mother tongue. This attitude 
toward music treats it more as a language, and seeks to make 
the form expressive of the feeling. In making a melody fit 
the words of a song the child is constantly led by the teacher to 



6o4 Principles of Secondary Education 

observe the relationship between the music and the text. 
Such effort on the part of the pupil brings about the most 
searching observation and thought with reference to the song 
he is producing. When such song-making is the collective 
effort of the whole class, different members offering their 
versions of the wording and thought of their couplets and their 
melodic expression there is a much more intensive exercise of 
aesthetic faculties and discriminative thought than ordinarily 
takes place by the old methods. 

Thus the new methods seek to develop the poetic, imagina- 
tive, and discriminative power of the pupil in his relation 1^ 
music, laying the basis for musical appreciation, which after all 
is the most important use to which the pupils in our pubHc 
schools will put their musical education. 



TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What evidences are there in the life of the adolescent child or in 
the activities of modern society to indicate that the art interests and in- 
stincts are fundamental ? 

2. What are the anthropological and historical evidences that the 
art impulses and interests are fundamental and of educative significance ? 

3. What activities of the school or of the life of school chUdren of 
the adolescent period possess educational value for aesthetic ends ? 

4. What are the comparative values of the analytic or academic and 
the synthetic or structural methods of art instruction as revealed by a 
study of any given school system ? 

5. Outline in detail a course of study according to each of the two 
methods (analytic and synthetic). What are the educational advantages 
and disadvantages of each ? 

6. What practical methods for the development of art appreciation 
among the high school pupils might be employed in your own commu- 
nity or any selected community ? 

7. What .are the values and advantages of the methods of teaching 
art in any one European country compared with those in vogue in America 
or in any selected American city ? 

8. How can the art work be correlated with the other activities of 
the school ? The music work ? 



Fine Arts and Music 605 

9. Work out the exercises of a course in design relating the fine and 
the constructive arts. 

10. What opportunity or demand or need is there in present American 
life for instruction in design for secondary school pupils ? How can these 
needs be correlated with work in the schools ? 

11. Trace the development in purpose, conception, and method of 
instruction in art and music in any selected school system. 

12. What is the place of instruction of music in the high schools? 
How does it differ from its place in the elementary school ? 

13. What criticism or suggestion can you make on the music work in 
any selected city school system or high school ? 

14. What place should the modern mechanical methods of music 
representation have in the schools ? Give advantages and disadvan- 
tages of their use. 

15. How can instruction in art and music be used as a means to moral 
instruction and character building ? 



REFERENCES 

Fine Arts 

American Art Annual, 10 vols., 1898-1913. F. N. Levy, editor. Biog- 
raphies of American Painters and Illustrators and Crafts Workers. 
Art Schools and Organizations, Art Sales, etc. New York. 

Art and Industry. I. Edwards Clark, editor. 4 vols. Part I, 1885, 
Drawing in Public Schools; Part II, 1892, Industrial and Manual 
Training; Parts III and IV, 1897-1898, Industrial and Technical 
Training; Bureau of Education, Washington, D.C. 

Art Education in the Public Schools of the United States. J. P. Haney, 
editor. London and New York, 1908. 

Barnes, Earl. Studies in Education. 2 vols. Illus. Stanford Uni- 
versity and Philadelphia, 1897. 

Colin, Paul. Enseignement des Arts du Dessin. Paris Exposition 
universeUe, 1889, Rapports du jury internat'l, 1890-1892, Vol. VI, 
pp. 1 21-1248. 

CouRAjOD, Louis C. L. Histoire de V enseignement des arts du dessin au 
XVIII siecle; VEcole royale des eleves proteges. 8vo, Paris, 1874. 

Dow, A. W. Composition. 7th ed. New York, 1913. 

Theory and Practice of Teaching Art. Publication of Teachers CoUege, 
New York, 1912. 

GoTZE, W. Das Kind als Kiinstler. Hamburg, 189S. 



6o6 Principles of Secondary Education 

Great Britain. Committee oe Council on Education — Science 

and Art Department. Directory with regulations for establishing 

and conducting science and art schools. London. 
Instruction in Fine and Manual Arts in the United States. Statistical 

monograph; H. T. Vailey, editor. Bull. VI, 1909, U. S. Bureau of 

Education, Washington, D.C. 
Jahrbuch fiir den Zeichen- und Kunstunterricht. Edited by G. Freise, 

Hanover. 
Kerschensteiner, G. Die Entwickelung der Zeichnerischen Begahung. 

Munich, 1905. 
Lerez. L'Art et la Poesie chez rEnfant. Paris, 1888. 
Proceedings Eastern Art Teachers' Association (now Eastern Art and 

Manual Training Teachers' Association). 6 vols., 8vo. Pub. by 

the Association, E. E. Struble, Sec. Newark, N.J. 
Proceedings National Education Association. Annual; see Reports of 

Department of Art Education. Pub. by the Association, Winona, 

Minn. 
Proceedings Western Drawing Teachers' Association (now Western Draw- 
ing and Manual Training Teachers' Association). 16 vols. Pub. 

by the Association, W. T. Bawden, Editor, Normal, 111. 
Report of Examiners, National Competitors, Board of Education, South 

Kensington. Annual. Wyman and Sons, London. 
School Art Book. Monthly magazine. 9 vols. lUus. Pub. by the 

Davis Press, Worcester, Mass. 
Sparkes, John C. L. Schools of Art, their origin, history, work, and' 

influence. In Report International Health Exhib., Vol. 8, pp. 721- 

880. London, 1884. 
Transactions International Art Congress, Vols. 1900, 1904, 1908. Vol. 

Ill, 1908. Pub. by the Congress, 151 Cannon St., London, S.C. 
Yearbooks of the Council of Supervisors of the Manual Arts. 7 vols., Svo. 

1 901-1907. Illustrated Studies in Art Education by various writers, 

Pub. by the Council ; address E. D. Griswold, Hastings-on-Hudson, 

N.Y. 
It is to be noted that practically all the large cities in the United States 

and England publish their art courses of study for the public schools ; 

various cities and localities on the continent do the same. 

Design 

Batchelder, Ernest. The Principles of Design. Chicago, 1904. 
Christie, Mrs. A. H. Embroidery and Tapestry. New York, 1906. 
CocKERELL, Douglass. Bookbinding. New York, 1902 ; London, 1906. 



Fine Arts and Music 607 

Crane, Walter. The Bases of Design. London, 1898. 

Day, Louis F. Nature in Ornament. 2 vols. London, 1894. 

Dow, Arthur W. Composition. New York, 1905. 

Jack, George. Woodcarving. New York, 1903. 

Johnston, Edward. Writing, Lettering and Illuminating. New York, 

1906. 
Ross, Denman W. a Theory of Pure Design. Boston, 1907. 

Music 
The Voice: 
Bates, James. The Care and Use of the Voice. London, 1907. 
Ellis, A. T. Pronunciation for Singers. London, 1888. 
Henderson, W. J. The Art of the Singer. New York, 1898. 
Howard, F. E. The Child Voice in Singing. New York, 1898. 
Jones, Dora Duty. The Technique of Speech. New York, 1909. 
Miller, Frank E. The Voice. New York, 1910. 
Rix, Frank R. Voice Training for School Children. New York, 1910. 
Russell, Louis A. English Diction for Singers and Speakers. Boston, 

1905. 
Taylor, D. C. The Psychology of Singing. New York, 1910. 

Methods: 
Cady, Calvin B. Music Education in Outline. Chicago, 1902. 
Crane, Julia E. The Manual of the Music Courses. Plattsburg, N.Y., 

1909. 
Farnsworth, Chas. H. Education through Music. New York, 1909. 
Forseman, Robert. Lyric Music Method. Chicago, 1914. 
Giddings, T. p. School Music Teaching. Chicago, 1910. 
Hardy, T. Maskell. Practical Lessons in School Singing. London, 

1906. 
Newton, E. W. Music in the Public Schools. New York, 1909. 
New York State Education Dept. Syllabus for Secondary Schools. 

Albany, 19 10. 
Rix, Frank R. Manual of School Music. New York, 1909. 
Smith, E. The Eleanor Smith Music Course Manual. New York, 1908. 
Tufts, J. W. A Handbook of Vocal Music. Boston, 1896. 



CHAPTER XVI 
HOUSEHOLD ARTS 

PRACTICAL ARTS IN EARLY EDUCATION. — In the 

early days of our educational history the work in practical 
arts was carried on at home. We laud the " little red 
school house " and point to the famous men and women who 
received their training within its walls. But we are forgetting 
that their best training was gained, by the boys in shop or 
field, and by the girls in a home, under the efficient guidance 
of a homemaker ; — a homemaker who realized that a home 
was the place for the rearing and training of children. There 
was no need of Montessori methods, for the Httle ones learned 
to button their own and their brothers' and sisters' pinafores, 
and the busy mother had no time to interfere with the 
child's self-activity. There was no demand for industrial 
arts in the elementary grades, for the children participated in 
the simple manufacture of the materials and equipment 
necessary to their daily life. The girl learned of textiles in no 
artificial fashion, but was thoroughly acquainted with the 
whole process in the production of the wool which she made 
into her winter dress. She understood detergents and dyes, 
for both the soap and the indigo blue were made at home. 
The girl spun and wove, knitted and embroidered, made dresses 
and the lace with which to trim them. She not only learned 
to make bread, but she made the yeast as well. She under- 
stood food preservation, for its learning was motivated by 
keen necessity. 

The " little red school house " then fulfilled its function 
well in teaching the three R's. Pestalozzi wished the home 

608 



Household Arts 609 

and the school to be supplementary to each other. His school 
curriculum included some work in the practical arts because 
the home was even then neglecting these industries. Our 
schools are still seeking to supplement the home, but the in- 
dustrial processes have been largely removed from the home 
and the home often converted into a mere lodging house for 
the family. This striking change in the character of home 
life, whatever causes have contributed to it, is at the bottom 
of the great educational problem. It accounts for the ever 
increasing paternaUsm of the schools. It compels the schools 
to introduce carefully planned work in household arts, if girls 
are to enter life well equipped. 

BROAD CONTENT OF HOUSEHOLD ARTS. —The 
well-being of a democracy demands that all should have an 
opportunity to become informed upon subjects affecting the 
prosperity of the community. A knowledge of how men 
and women earn a livelihood is essential to an appreciation of 
the dignity of labor. In some way schools have failed to 
make their students realize that there is dignity in all forms of 
honorable labor. Any educational system that registers such 
a failure among its products is fundamentally unsound, if not 
actually vicious. Social sympathy and stability must be 
secured by putting work in its proper place of honor and by 
imparting a knowledge of the conditions that govern that work. 
It is quite as important for the girl to be trained in citizenship 
as for the boy. We have come to recognize that development 
of the individual is not a matter of sex, that all children have a 
right to be well born, well fed, sheltered, and clothed, and that 
all, regardless of sex, must be given the opportunity for free and 
full development. In order to meet present-day conditions, 
the girls need training for hfe. Our conception of the scope 
of household arts has been enlarged, therefore, to include the 
larger housekeeping, and each department and process grow- 
ing out of homemaking must be studied as affecting not 
only the individual home, but the homes of the community. 



6io Principles of Secondary Education 

House sanitation concerns a girl in her own home, but she 
must be also concerned with the housing problem of the ten- 
ement. Feeding her own children is by no means her whole 
duty, for the milk and other foods which she will buy come 
from the same sources that feed the poor. This common 
source becomes her responsibility. Knowledge of food values 
should not be restricted by sex, for though one may never cook 
a meal, food must often be selected from a menu card and the 
proper selection is of greatest importance. The course which 
deals with cookery only becomes trade training as distin- 
guished from household arts education. Education in house- 
hold arts is for a business which lasts as long as life lasts, and 
through it one should find a purposeful share in the outside 
world's work. The household arts prepare girls for good 
citizenship and make of them active workers in bringing 
about better living conditions for all. 

The Purpose of the Household Arts. — Household arts 
treats of the final distribution, the ultimate preparation for 
use, and the consumption of the earth's products. It aims to 
enlarge the sum total of human happiness by improving the 
average of human health and increasing the purchasing power 
of the small purse. It seeks to teach values, to teach methods 
in the preparation of materials used for food, clothing, and 
shelter, to teach the principles of hygiene and sanitation. This 
is an age believing in prevention rather than in cure. ReaHz- 
ing the soundness of such belief, household arts endeavors to 
teach the child the principles of right living, so that .she will 
become healthy, happy, and efficient. It tries to teach econ- 
omy in the home management, and this by neither skimping 
nor doing without. It seeks to teach the purchasing power of 
the individual purse, not so much in the number of pounds of 
flour or beef that the contents of the purse will buy, but in 
what, in terms of caloric or food value, the purse holds ; not 
so much how many yards of cloth or ribbon may be purchased, 
but such a knowledge of textiles as will enable the purchaser to 



Household Arts 6ii 

secure a fair value. It includes the study of the consumption 
of time and energy, since efhciency is as necessary to the proper 
management of the home as it is to that of the factory. The 
big directing purpose of household arts may be defined as a 
desire to improve social conditions through teaching the effec- 
tive control of physical environment. 

SCHOOL WORK SHOULD CONNECT CLOSELY WITH 
LIFE. — Training in household arts should fit actual Ufe con- 
ditions. This is a necessity. The teacher must know the 
home conditions of the individual members of her class be- 
fore she can adapt her work to their needs, but she must also 
know the home conditions of the community at large and 
point the way for cooperative work, for without some such 
knowledge she is in danger of educating her girls away from 
actual conditions. The kindergartner, by means of her home 
visits and gatherings of mothers, is exerting a greater in- 
fluence in the home than is the teacher of household arts. 
The Mothers' Associations might easily include the parents 
of older students. The kindergartner would welcome the as- 
sistance of the household arts teacher, not only in the pro- 
gram, but also on the social side, which is always more 
intimate when combined with appropriate refreshments. 
The mothers might accept suggestions from their daughters 
concerning things learned in a domestic science lesson if they 
were acquainted with the teacher and respected her opinion. 

A word of warning may be in place. The teacher will not 
gain the mother's respect unless she is willing to give a respect- 
ful consideration to that mother's home methods. Unless 
very careful, the teacher may quite unconsciously offend 
some foreign mother. Furthermore, social workers claim 
that much of the lawlessness of children of foreign parentage 
is due to the loss of filial respect, engendered in our schools 
through lack of considerate attention to the customs of other 
nations. In a cookery lesson, it is wise, after giving the fun- 
damental principle in the effect of heat upon a given food- 



6i2 Principles of Secondary Education 

stuff, to illustrate or at least indicate the different modifications 
in its preparation or service in other countries. Often the 
same dish is merely cloaked with a different name. Similar 
consideration should not be neglected in the study of costume 
or housewifery. Comparison of methods, eliciting the good 
from each, is a quick way of securing mutual respect and 
social sympathy. 

CLOTHING AND HYGIENE. — The Gertrude of Pesta- 
lozzi was most careful of the toilet of her children. They 
were taught habits of neatness, the arrangement of their hair 
and the condition of their dresses was a part of the teacher's 
responsibihty. The domestic art teacher presents no new 
principle of education when she introduces talks on personal 
hygiene and gives instruction in the care and maintenance of 
the wardrobe. Habits of dress have an economic importance 
far in excess of the cost of cloth per yard or the size of the 
milliner's bill. It is of primary concern that the girl who is 
entering a business or professional life possess an attractive 
personal appearance ; an appearance neat, appropriate, and 
becoming. She will find this a decided asset in securing not 
only employment, but the respect of her employer. 

Blind and stupid following of fashion is to be met by 
instruction in costume design and color harmony. The study 
of proportion and form carried out in garment construction 
will train the girls to an appreciation of beauty and appro- 
priateness. The study of domestic art, however, should go 
below the surface and deal with both toilet and dress. A study 
of the proper kind of corsets and shoes is as necessary as the 
consideration of those garments which the girls themselves 
may make in the classroom. This whole subject of dress 
should be in close coordination with that of physiology. An 
ethical question is also involved which must not be passed by. 
Every teacher of household arts has a heavy moral respon- 
sibihty. Clean-minded men remonstrate, while others stare, 
at the hobble or sHt skirt, the extremely low neck, the ab- 



Household Arts 613 

surdly short sleeves, and the high-heeled pumps so commonly 
worn. This is a fact not to be controverted, a fact presenting 
a problem more important than sewing or pattern drafting. 
Teachers of household arts should recognize this. They should 
go further than cultivating an appreciation of the beautiful, the 
becoming, the appropriate, and not hesitate, from any false 
modesty, to teach true modesty. It is admitted that home is 
the best place for such instruction and the mother the proper 
one to give it. Unfortunately some girls lack proper home 
environment and even mothers ; and all girls discount what is 
told them, until, through study, the fundamental laws impress 
upon them the wisdom of what their mother said. If the 
students' brothers and sisters are taken as concrete illustra- 
tions, care and clothing of infants and small children can be 
taught in a way to avoid self-consciousness. Older sisters 
have a great influence on the younger, and the " little 
mothers " thus secure a training that will later stand them in 
good stead. It is more important for them to know how to 
bathe the baby, dress it properly, and use the power of sug- 
gestion in the formation of its habits, than to embroider a 
petticoat or make Hollandaise sauce. Whether the girl 
marries or not, she should bear her part in the prevention of 
infant mortality, and a knowledge of child hygiene will make 
her an intelligent worker both in her home and civic life. 

FOOD AND NUTRITION. — Satisfaction is felt in the 
ownership of a body and brain, only when the mechanism of 
the body runs smoothly and supplies due energy for the mind 
to apply. That energy is secured by the adequate intake of 
air, water, and food, and the proper elimination of waste. 
We eat to live ; the direction of that hfe and energy is another 
problem. Efi&ciency, however, is to be secured only through 
the maintenance of nutritive equilibrium. The food for in- 
fancy is nicely balanced by nature in the mother's milk, and 
the food of the mother affects this supply. It is acknowl- 
edged that much of the sickness or failure to nourish the 



6 14 Principles of Secondary Education 

child properly comes from ignorance on the part of the young 
mother, which might have been avoided by a little timely in- 
struction. Lack of natural food and the necessity of artificial 
feeding is a large factor in infant mortality, and, therefore, 
the food for infants and small children is a practical and most 
important phase of household arts instruction. Food habits 
are acquired early and need guidance and direction. Malnu- 
trition is prevalent among the wealthy as well as among the 
poorer people. This is due to ignorance of the proper food to 
buy rather than to a lack of money with which to buy it. 
Increased facilities of transportation have brought to our 
doors the products of every cHme ; a new problem, that of 
choice, has been laid upon the homemaker. This requires a 
knowledge of food values and food requirements. 

The housewife must have an appreciation of what constitutes 
cost and its contributing factors, for the price one pays for 
an article may be no criterion of its food value. Cheap food 
is not necessarily either unappetizing or lacking in food value. 
The cost of production and manufacture, the keeping quaHties, 
ease of transportation, nearness to markets, all influence the 
price placed upon an article. Cleanliness in the handling 
and delivery of goods increases the cost legitimately, and 
cleanliness is worth paying for. Sanitary science is closely 
linked with the marketing problem. 

Technical Skill to be Gained. — Skill in manipulation 
should be secured through individual work under conditions 
calculated to develop responsibihty and initiative. It is 
important that the individuality of the young cook be en- 
couraged. While the fundamental principles in the applica- 
tion of heat to foodstuffs are definite, the art of cookery is 
the result of imagination applied to " tasteful " combinations, 
attractive forms, and interesting seasonings. There are but 
a limited number of foodstuffs, and any girl who succeeds in 
modifying some monotonous dish or inventing a new one has 
conferred a blessing upon humanity. The correct serving 



Household Arts 615 

of simple meals is of equal importance with their preparation. 
These should be appropriate to the Hves of the girls, and all 
display of fancy cookery should be carefully avoided. 

Scientific Knowledge. — ■ The girl attending a secondary 
school cannot be expected to comprehend organic chemistry 
such as is involved in food composition. She lacks the 
maturity necessary to become scientific minded. When the 
attempt is made to teach her food chemistry the usual re- 
sult is a superficial understanding or a memorizing of sweep- 
ing generalities. She cannot appreciate the intermediate 
steps in such complicated chemical changes and is apt to 
beheve that her knowledge of results indicates a mastery of 
a subject, which, in fact, she has scarcely entered. There is 
a thought content to this work, however, of such practical 
importance as to demand attention. A knowledge of the 
general classification of foodstuffs and the effect of the heat 
as appHed in the processes necessary to their preparation for 
the table is essential. The changes in the foodstuff's thus 
affected must be considered with reference to appearance, tex- 
ture, taste, digestion, and metabolism. 

Waste. — Waste is a topic of especial importance, affecting 
the cost of living in more ways than are usually recognized. 
The self-evident waste in the garbage can is the most easily 
governed. Skillful preparation of left-overs can be taught 
satisfactorily, but the avoidance of left-overs is more sensible. 
To buy or cook a larger quantity than is needed is evidence 
of bad management, but the application of the wrong degree 
and quantity of heat in the cookery of a given food may render 
it difficult of digestion and necessitate the utilization of a dis- 
proportionate amount of energy in order to bring it to a form 
capable of absorption, and there is also apt to be a high per- 
centage of waste in undigested material. It is a truism to 
say that it is not what we eat, but what we digest, which 
nourishes us. Water and air are important factors in body 
nutrition and ehmination, and if these are unclean or in- 



6i6 Principles of Secondary Education 

sufficient, arrested development and illness are likely to 
result. 

Prevention is the keynote of this study, the prevention of 
the human ills which are so costly in their cure. To quote 
from Mrs. Richards : "The healthy, happy person is not Hable 
to be a criminal. Prisons and reformatories are filled with 
those whose twisted nerves and starved muscles mean knotted 
brains, and troublesome, uncontrolled impulses." Is it not 
true economy for a community to prevent by adequate in- 
struction the production of this class ? 

HOUSING CONDITIONS, HOUSE PLANNING, AND 
HOME KEEPING. — Increasing numbers of people are crowd- 
ing into cities which are already badly congested. This ex- 
treme congestion has caused housing conditions under which 
health and strength have small chance for development. In- 
vestigation shows that disease and death are in direct propor- 
tion to the light and air space in the tenement, and that 
criminality grows where unsanitary housing conditions exist. 
Infant mortality in houses fronting on alleys is nearly three 
times that in houses fronting on streets. The problem thus 
presented is an intensely human one, as the efficiency of our 
citizenship is dependent upon the decent housing of our people. 
The coming generation must be instructed in house sanitation. 
Our schools now contain the future landlords and tenement 
dwellers. In the schools, then, the work must be done. 

Proper ventilation is of first importance. The need of a 
sufficient supply of clean air for breathing creates a problem 
as grave as that of securing clean water for drinking or for 
bathing. The schoolgirl should be taught these facts and 
given some knowledge of heating, ventilating, and plumbing 
systems. 

Care of the sick should be taught. This training includes 
practice in proper bed making, bathing, emergency bandages, 
poultices, compresses, and first aid to the injured. There is 
no attempt to develop professional nurses, but rather an 



Household Arts 617 

effort to make every woman able to meet the accidents which 
occur, and to care for small ailments which do not require a 
physician's attendance. Physicians claim that the lack of 
proper care and feeding often sends a patient back to the 
hospital a second, and even a third, time. Moreover, the 
work is preventive. Such a high school course might also 
constitute prevocational training for professional nursing in 
private institutions, or public welfare nursing. 

Moral and Economic Values of Such Instruction. — The 
physical environment of individuals has an undoubted effect 
upon their character, happiness, and health. A pleasant view 
from the dining-room windows, affects the flow of digestive 
juices and the consequent ease of digestion. Unpleasant 
environment, either social or physical, is often the cause of 
malnutrition and indigestion. Harmonious coloring of walls 
and hangings, pleasing pictures, and comfortable furniture 
are of economic and social importance. These cost no more 
in dollars and cents than their opposites. Indeed, the un- 
comfortable furniture and inharmonious decorations may cost 
more. The important thing is that the girl understand the 
principles of aesthetics and be trained in their application to hfe. 

The paths to be traveled in performing the common duties 
of housekeeping must be studied in order to save steps and 
confusion. There are so many calls upon the time and strength 
of the housekeeper that conservation of both should receive the 
careful attention of those who are qualified to advise and teach. 
The homemaker of the future will be a household engineer, 
acquainted with the labor-saving devices and equipped to 
apply these through her knowledge of physics and elec- 
tricity. This will be letting her head save not only her heels, 
but her hands and her time. Ef&ciency and scientific manage- 
ment are more important in the home than in the factory, 
where the product is less important than that of the home. 
Again we have here a fundamental prevocational training for 
institutional housekeeping. 



6i8 Principles of Secondary Education 

EQUIPMENT. — A school system is frequently erroneously 
judged by its handsome buildings and elaborate equipment, 
when too often these are but proofs that the school is training 
girls away from the home and real life rather than for it. 
Over-equipment is worse than under-equipment, for the latter 
at least develops initiative and resourcefulness. The average 
woman in most localities will not have an electric stove in her 
kitchen for some years to come ; therefore, the girl needs to 
learn the control of that type of stove with which she will 
probably have to deal. Neither should the adequate equip- 
ment for teaching household arts be looked upon merely as 
expense, but rather as investment. No investment can be 
more safe, nor guarantee a surer and larger interest. Usually 
lessons requiring the use of the oven fail to put responsibility 
upon the individual students, because of an inadequate num- 
ber of ovens. Baking bread and roasting or broiling meat are 
fundamental processes which all should master. Educating 
away from the home is also evident in the use of sewing 
machines too expensive for the average home to afford. 
This criticism is a plea for sound economy, and not at all 
intended to encourage the purchase of cheap equipment which 
in the end must prove a poor investment. A low cost is by 
no means synonymous with economy. 

The furnishings of the school fitting for life in rural communi- 
ties should be adapted to rural conditions, while those of the 
urban school must be adjusted to the conditions found in 
tenement or flat. One of the most needed reforms in every 
home is a more convenient arrangement of kitchen equipment. 
The proper juxtaposition of stove, sink, and cupboard saves 
hundreds of steps. The drain board to the left of the sink 
means the saving of several extra motions in the washing 
of each dish, while the proper height of sink and table means 
less backache. Proper ventilation prevents overheating, 
and a fireless cooker secures economy of time and fuel. A sink 
of the right type equipped with drain basket can be con- 



Household Arts 619 

verted into a modern dish washer and lessen what is con- 
sidered by everyone to be the most unpleasant part of house- 
work. A school equipment made up of many units, each a 
complete kitchen providing opportunity for individual work, 
will develop self-reliance. 

Elimination of the Artificial. — As the teacher of commercial 
subjects is confronted with the problem of ehminating the 
artificial so that he may make the work approach most nearly 
to actual business, so the household arts teacher must strug- 
gle with the same difficulty in her own field. In either 
case, unfortunately, there must remain too much of the arti- 
ficial. The students are too old not to realize the make- 
believe, and as a consequence are slow to acquire any vital 
interest. Various plans have been devised to offset this diffi- 
culty, one of which is the use of an apartment or group of 
rooms where the girls may actually keep house. The cooking 
laboratory furnishes too little opportunity for testing the girls' 
habits of neatness and orderliness. In the apartment, which 
should be furnished for use and not for display, not only the 
ordinary duties of the housewife may be performed, but the 
aesthetic and social side may also receive due attention. 

Value and Results of Training in Housekeeping. — This 
work in household administration necessitates the most care- 
ful planning, and must be conducted by a teacher well ac- 
quainted with her subject. If the apartment is wisely selected, 
much may be learned of wall and floor treatment, of house 
sanitation, and of plumbing. The selection and arrang- 
ing of simple furniture teaches the girls how to economize 
both time and energy. Division of income and household 
accounts assume a real interest to the group of girls living as 
a small family. Marketing is taught by actual doing, and 
the division of income tested by a real balance sheet. But 
at best this too is make-believe, and whenever the girl can be 
stimulated to use her own home as the laboratory for her 
practical experience, a school can well afford to credit such 



620 Principles of Secondary Education 

work. This plan has been actually worked out in several 
places with success and is to be recommended. Wherever 
there is cooperation with institutions or organizations con- 
cerned with the professional or business use of the processes 
growing out of housekeeping, the students secure control 
of the processes and confidence in themselves ; but best of 
all they come to look upon this work of housekeeping as a 
profession or a business. There is no questioning the better 
attitude of the trained homemaker toward housekeeping and 
child care as compared with the one who is ignorant of the 
possibilities. She sees that it is a business worthy of her 
best effort and mental capacity. She is willing to invest in 
it and she finds joy and satisfaction in attacking the problem. 
Keeping accounts is not for her a matter of accounting to 
another for moneys received, but rather one of money invested 
in a business which she is anxiously interested in making pay. 
EXHIBITIONS. — Too much time and energy are given to 
the preparation of work for exhibition. An exhibition can 
only be material at best, as the really effective work of the 
department cannot be displayed in any such manner. The 
exhibition can be justified only on the ground that it may act 
as some stimulus to student endeavor and may offer the pubhc 
some concrete idea of what their children are doing. Unless 
supervisors are watchful, the teacher's work will be much 
handicapped by the thought of some annual exhibition. 
Indeed, not only will time and energy be wasted, but there 
will be great danger of her losing sight of the purpose under- 
lying the work. She will work for the exhibition instead of 
for the girl. The wisely arranged exhibition will show what 
has been accompHshed by the poor and mediocre as well as 
by the excellent students. Failure to make it thus inclusive 
means that the public must be misled and the students given 
a lesson in bad ethics. To repeat, the planning of the year's 
work should not be affected by a possible exhibition looming 
up ahead. If that work reaches the vital needs of the girls 



Household Arts 621 

and harmonizes more and more closely with the actual con- 
ditions, there will be an abundance of material for a creditable 
exhibition. School principals are often the ones at fault. 
By their ambition to make their school show material results, 
the teacher is forced against her better knowledge to accede 
to their wishes. 

TEACHERS. — In the last analysis, the success of any 
scheme of education depends upon the teacher. All depart- 
ments of school activity are continually calling for better 
teachers, but perhaps none of them are in such need as the 
comparatively new department of household arts. It demands 
teachers with vision and character as well as thorough tech- 
nical training. A housekeeper, a dressmaker, or a young 
woman clever at sewing or cooking is not necessarily a good 
teacher of household arts. The good teacher must, of course, 
have a natural or acquired deftness in the management of 
needle or rolling-pin, but she must also be well trained in the 
principles of chemistry, physics, biology, physiology, psy- 
chology, sociology, English, mathematics, economics, and peda- 
gogy. The department has suffered, because of its newness, 
from certain tj^es of teachers. One is the woman who, after 
years of teaching pure science, has taken up the subject too 
late to become skillful on its technical side. Another is the 
trade worker, who may possess high manual dexterity combined 
with good taste, but who necessarily has the trade point of 
view, which is narrow, if not selfish. A third type secures 
a position through influential friends and then hastens to 
a summer school, there to receive a smattering of the subject, 
which, combined with bluff, will carry her through. Still 
others, after failing as teachers of the humanities, have 
shifted to household arts work, wrongly believing that it 
requires less capacity. Finally, in this department, as in all 
others, teachers may be divided into two classes — the job 
teacher and the professional teacher — one working for salary 
only and the other for the girl as well. 



62 2 Principles of Secondary Education 

Probably no other department, barring that of physical 
training, touches the lives of the girls so intimately as this. 
It is of the utmost importance, therefore, that its teachers 
should be women of vision, refinement, and consecration ; 
women who know the meaning of life and the dignity of labor, 
and who appreciate the aim of household arts. Fear the issue 
one may, but avoid it one dare not, — that seriously important 
necessity of teaching our girls of the dangers to be met, dis- 
eases to be avoided, disaster to be escaped, and death to be 
prevented. It takes the highest type of woman to approach 
girls on the subject of social prophylaxis, and much harm will 
be done if the instruction be undertaken by one less pure in 
mind than the girls themselves. Mothers are shirking their 
duty or are unqualified to perform it, but the ethical responsi- 
bility remains. Wise legislation can do much, but it cannot 
lift the individual duty we owe in protecting the womanhood 
and motherhood of succeeding generations. If the teaching 
of sex hygiene is deemed advisable, let us frankly face the 
question and, as we can, work out the best method of bring- 
ing our girls to a sane comprehension of the responsibility 
they hold, the self-respect they must maintain, to guard their 
womanhood. There should be no roughshod methods, 
and we question the advisability of class instruction for the 
self-conscious adolescent girl. Only mature wisdom can 
dictate the psychological moment, but the household arts 
teacher should not neglect her opportunities. 

Women who have taken their degrees as Doctors of Medicine 
and others who are graduates of the best schools of household 
arts, confess that they failed to make the application of physio- 
logical facts themselves. The bridging over between theory 
and life is not being accomplished, and girls enter married 
life quite ignorant of its responsibilities. There may be found 
here one means of combating infant mortahty and of diminish- 
ing the number of unhappy marriages. This really amounts 
to vocational training, but for a vocation which from the 



Household Arts 623 

time of the cave woman to the end of human existence must 
belong to woman. 

THE HOME IDEA MUST BE PRESERVED. — The appH- 
cation of steam and electricity to transportation, communica- 
tion, and manufacture has altered the human environment 
more in the last three quarters of a century than had been 
done in the six thousand years preceding. These changes 
have been made manifest in the home in many ways. Though 
industries have been removed from the home, the absence of 
the industries has not destroyed the home, and if in the course 
of events other processes should be taken away, indeed, if 
even the kitchen stove and the sewing machine should become 
useless, it would still be home, because home is a place for the 
shelter, privacy, and rest of a group of individuals bound to- 
gether by ties of affection. 

In' the final analysis, that which makes the home is not 
purely material, and teachers of homemaking must never 
lose sight of this fundamental truth. From the economic 
standpoint alone, the home cannot successfully compete with 
a larger grouping of individuals. If material wants are to 
be satisfied, man will go where that satisfaction can best be 
obtained, and this will not be in the home. If one believes 
that the integrity of this country is dependent upon the in- 
tegrity of the home, he must realize at once the vital importance 
of teaching the young how to preserve that home. The home 
developed from a feeHng of the need of protection, and it still 
has that ideal, but the office of a real home is also to teach 
right habits of hving, as well as to develop individuality and 
responsibility. Though the home of to-day may be different 
in outward appearance from the home of yesterday, it still 
offers an opportunity for the development of obedience, 
reverence, unselfishness, and love. 

This ideal has been set for all teachers of household arts 
by the pioneer worker in the application of science to the home. 
Mrs. Ellen H. Richards states: "When mothers become so 



624 Principles of Secondary Education 

careless or ignorant that half their children fail to reach the 
first birthday, and of those that live to be three years old, 
a majority are defrauded of their birthright of health, some 
agency must step in. If the state is to have good citizens, 
it must provide for the teaching of the essentials to the genera- 
tion that will become the wiser mothers and fathers of the 
next." 

VOCATIONAL ASPECT OF HOUSEHOLD ARTS. — 
Large numbers of girls who complete a high school course 
of study must immediately enter some wage-earning position 
and are therefore forced to seek information and training 
for economic ends. A still larger number have been entering 
the field of industry immediately after leaving the grammar 
schools. Legislation is being quite generally enacted to re- 
tain the girl in school, and the school must therefore see that 
her time is profitably spent in preparation for a vocation. 

The Trade School. — The Manhattan Trade School in New 
York City paved the way for others of a similar character in 
New Britain and Bridgeport, Connecticut, and in Worcester, 
Massachusetts. " These short-term trade schools with neces- 
sary academic and specific intensified trade courses are for 
those who must become wage earners as early as possible. 
The Worcester Girls' Industrial School has lengthened the 
course to two years. Wage earning is the goal and not 
home dressmaking. Quality and speed are the two points 
emphasized in order that the tasks may bring adequate re- 
turns." 

In view of the facts that of the seventy-five thousand 
women workers allied with women's trade unions, twenty-two 
thousand are permanently out of work all winter, and that of 
all industrial workers among women not a tenth are allied 
with trade unions, it is a pretty safe estimate to say that at 
least one hundred thousand women workers in industries are 
out of work in the big cities of the East today. When one 
realizes that more than twenty-two thousand are working on 



Household Arts 625 

half-time in the white goods work alone, and that at wages 
from $3.50 to $4.50 a week, one can. but question the cause 
and ask whether we do well to train the nimble fingers of our 
youth for this fierce battle. There is the greatest need of 
vocational guidance and that by means of a well-organized 
bureau with experienced and trained advisers. The misfits, 
more than the untrained, are among these idle workers. It 
is devoutly hoped that the standardization of housework, of 
homemaking, and of child care may win for them their proper 
place as a vocation for girls, many of whom are better fitted 
to be house workers than factory workers. 

The following is the program for girls of the day classes : 

First Year 

I. Trade work in one trade 22-25 hrs. per week. 
II. Cookery, 2 lessons i^ hrs. each per week. 

III. Class instruction 3 to 4J hrs. weekly. 

1. Trade arithmetic (not given all year except to girls back- 

ward in arithmetic). 

2. English — oral and written. 

a. Business letters. 

h. Compositions based on trade work. 

3. Spelling — trade terms, phrases and words in common use. 

4. Writing. 

5. Citizenship — social ethics. 

The above subjects are not necessarily presented parallel 
to each other. One subject, such as arithmetic, is pre- 
sented for one term, as necessary, and another substi- 
tuted as advisable. 

IV. Art.. 

1. Color scales. 

2. Line, such as arrangement of tucks, rows of insertion, etc. 

3. Spacing and proportion of arrangement of trimmings, etc. 

4. Designs for garments, trimmings, hats, etc. 

V. Physical education, 2 lessons of 45 min. each weekly. 

1. Short drills in marching, wand drills, etc., for cooperation. 

2. Games, such as tag, pass ball, volley baU, etc. 

3. Folk dancing. 

4. Hygiene. 



626 Principles of Secondary EdiLcation 

Second Year 

I. Trade 22-25 hrs. per week. 
II. Advanced cooking (elective), 2 lesson of i^ hrs. weekly. 

III. Class instruction 3-4I hrs. weekly. 

1. Advanced trade arithmetic given for one term of fourteen 

weeks. 
a. Shop organization. 
h. Estimates of material for garments. 

c. Economy of material. 

d. Estimates for prices on single garments and large orders, 

such as underwear, etc. 

2. English. 

a. Accurate descriptions of work, etc. 

h. Directions for making garments or parts of garment. 

3. Textiles. 

a. Study of weaves, textures, adulterations, etc., through 

practical tests. 
h. Short history of common textiles — cotton, linen, wool, 

and silk. 

4. Industrial history and geography as related to women's work. 

5. Citizenship — practical civics. 

6. Apportionment of income — expenditure. 

IV. Art (elective). 

1 . Applied design — designs for dress trimmings, hat trimmings, 

buckles, bands, etc. 

2. Costume designing. 

3. Designing of hats. 
V. Physical education. 

I. Continuation of first year's work. 

The Girls' Technical High School. — The technical high 
school is of a widely differing type, having broad academic 
and general vocational courses extending over three or four 
years for those able to devote so much time to study and prep- 
aration for a life work. Since few girls who enter high school 
know what their future work is to be, the high school course, 
if constructed upon broad lines, will help determine for each 
girl to what she can best afford to devote herself as a means 
of livelihood. The program for the practical arts high school 
is outlined to include as many of the liberal or non- vocational 



Household Arts 



627 



studies as possible, together with the necessary vocational 
studies. These are given with as broad an educational value 
as possible but must represent exact industrial conditions. 
By the third year the girl is expected to show her preference, and 
real specialization takes place in the senior year. In addition 
to the special line of work the girl is " given the Enghsh, 
mathematics, history, and science which will be most helpful 
in future competition." 

The cooperative plan is followed in some cities with success, 
and an increasing number of opportunities to cooperate in 
office, shop, factory, and institution are being found. 



GIRLS' PRACTICAL ARTS COOPERATIVE COURSE 



First Year 



Second Year 



English 4 

Mathematics .4 

Applied art 5 

Cookery 4 



English 4 

Mathematics S 

Applied art 4 

Cookery and home economics . 6 



Sewing ...'..... 8 Millinery and dressmaking 



Music I 

Physical training 2 

Third Year 



Music 


. I 


Physical training . . . 


. 2 


Fourth Year 





English 4 

French, German, or Spaiiish . . 4 

Applied art 4 

Cookery 6 

Millinery or dressmaking . .10 



English 4 

French, German, or Spanish . 4 

History (American) .... 4 

Civics I 

Applied art 2 

Cookery 6 

Millinery or dressmaking . .10 



Music I 

Physical training 2 

Cooperative plan ; alternate weeks 
in school and shop. 



Music I 

Physical training .... 2 

Cooperative plan ; alternate weeks 

in school and shop. 



628 Principles of Secondary Education 

SOMERVILLE COURSE 

First Year 

Required Studies 

Periods Points 

English 4 4 

Mathematics 5 5 

Ancient history 4 4 

Science lectures i 

Ethics I 

Music I 

Physical training i 

Cooking, sewing, and drawing ... 10 5 

Second Year 

Required Studies 

Periods Points 

English 2 4 4 

Ethics I 

Music I 

Physical training i 

Elective Studies 

Group I. (Choose two) 

Geometry 5 5 

European history 4 4 

French 5 5 

Household physics 5 5 

Group II. (Choose one) 

Drawing and applied arts .... 10 5 

Cooking 10 5 

Millinery and dress-making ... 10 5 

Third Year 

Required Sttidies 

Periods Points 

English 3 4 4 

Physical geography ...... 5 5 



Household Arts 629 

Periods Poinis 

Ethics I 

Music I 

Physical training i 

Elective Sitidies 

Group I. (Choose one) 

French 2 5 5 

Practical arithmetic S 5 

Cooking and household chemistry . 5 5 

Group II. (Choose one) 

Domestic arts 10 5 

Drawing and applied arts 2 ... 10 5 

Fourth Year 

Required Studies 

Periods Points 

English 4 4 4 

United States history and civics ... 4 4 

Ethics I 

Music I 

Physical training i 

Elective Studies 

Group I. (Choose one) 

French 3 4 4 

Review of mathematics .... 5 5 

Physics 5 5 

Biology S 5 

Group II. (Choose one) 

Dressmaking 10 5 

Millinery 10 5 

Household management .... 10 5 

The Household Arts in the Academic High School. — 

The program for household arts in the general academic 
high school course differs from that in the practical arts high 
school as the natural result of its differing aim. The girls 
following this course do not feel the economic pressure of 



630 Principles of Secondary Education 

those entering the practical arts high school course, and may 
continue their studies into the college. Therefore this program 
must include college entrance requirements. Some colleges 
are granting from two to four credit units for household arts. 
These courses are given with a view to the girls' own needs 
and are made as broadly educational as possible. The experi- 
mental method in laboratory practice, and the broad economic 
and social content of household arts make it a subject as truly 
educative as any in the school program. Its value, like that 
of any study, lies largely in the way in which it is presented. 
It may also form a basis for later specialization during the 
college course and lead to several vocations, such as the teach- 
ing of household arts, institutional management, dietetics, 
nursing, social service, public health work, etc. The fortu- 
nate thing about a household arts course is its dual value, as 
a preparation for living as well as for earning a livelihood. 

ACADEMIC PROGRAM INCLUDING HOUSEHOLD ARTS 
First Year Second Year 

English 4 English 4 

Elocution I Elocution i 

Latin or German (adv.) or Ger- Latin or German (adv.) or Ger- 
man (beg.) ..:.... 5 man (beg.) 5 

Algebra 4 Geometry 5 

Garment making and laundry Millinery and dressmaking . . 8 

work 8 Applied art 2 

Applied art ....... 2 Music . i 

Music I Physical training 2 

Physical training 2 

Third Year Fourth Year 

English 4 English 4 

Elocution I Elocution i 

One from Two from 

Latin or Latin or 

German (adv.) or ] German (adv.) or \ 

German (beg.) or } ... 5 German (beg.) or i ... 5 
German (ist year) J German (2d year) J 



Household Arts 



631 



French 4 

Spanish 4 

History (ancient) 4 

Botany 2 

Chemistry (2 lab.) 6 

Home economics 8 

Apphed art 2 

Music I 

Physical training 2 



French 4 

Spanish 4 

Physics (2 lab.) 6 

History (American) .... 4 

Civics I 

Home economics 6 

Physiology 5 

Applied art 2 

Music 1 

Physical training 2 



SOMERVILLE COURSE 

First Year 
Required Studies 

Periods 

English 4 

Mathematics 5 

Science lectures i 

Ethics I 

Music I 

Physical training i 

Elective Studies 

Cookery 5 

Choice of one language 5 



Points 
4 
5 



Second Year 
Required Studies 

Periods 

EngHsh 2 4 

Ancient history 4 

Ethics I 

Music I 

Physical training i 

Elective Studies 

Cookery 5 

Choice of one language. 5 



Points 

4 
4 



632 Principles of Secondary Education 

Third Year 

Required Studies Periods Points 

English 4 4 

European and English history ... 4 4 

Ethics I 

Music I 

Physical training ........ i 

Elective Studies 

Household arts 5 2^ 

Choice of one language 5 5 

Fourth Year 

Required Studies 

English 4 4 4 

United States history and civics ... 4 4 

Ethics I 

Music I 

Physical training i 

Elective Studies 

Household arts 5 2I 

Choice of one language 5 5 

HOUSEHOLD ARTS IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE 
UNITED STATES. — Legislation setting up systems of state 
aid for vocational education has been secured in several states 
and is under consideration in others. This legislation is con- 
cerned with the establishment of practical arts high schools 
in which shall be given instruction in household arts. The 
status in a few of the states which have most advanced legis- 
lation is as follows. 

Massachusetts is one of the few to have adopted a state 
system of vocational education. The existing schemes differ 
principally in regard to the amount of support given and de- 
gree of control exercised by the state. Massachusetts provides 
for household arts, agriculture, and industrial training. Here, 



Household Arts 633 

as in Connecticut, New York, and Wisconsin, " the instruction 
given state grants must be open to pupils over fourteen years 
of age who are able to do the work successfully, even though 
they have not received a common school diploma. The effect 
of this is to set up a new kind of secondary school paralleling 
the regular high school for those over fourteen years of age." 
In Massachusetts the local community builds and equips 
the plant and the state pays one half operating expenses. 
Payment is in proportion to results accompHshed. The State 
Board of Education is responsible for the administration of 
vocational education as well as for general education. The 
amendment to the act of 191 1 raises to sixteen the compul- 
sory school age for attendance on a vocational or continuation 
school by children regularly employed. Boston opens con- 
tinuation schools September i, 1914. 

New York estabHshed a system of state-aided vocational 
schools to be administered by the State Board of Education, 
and those grants have been extended from day schools of various 
kinds giving training in home economics, agriculture, trades and 
industries to part-time, continuation, and evening schools, as 
well as increasing the aid to two thirds the salary of the first 
teacher and one third the salary of each additional teacher. 
This aid amounts to 28 per cent of the operating expenses 
of the school in the larger centers and 29 per cent of the schools 
in rural communities. A local option measure empowers 
local boards of education to extend the compulsory education 
law to " permit " children between the ages of fourteen and 
sixteen years of age to attend part-time and continuation 
schools. This new legislation substitutes day attendance of 
from four to eight hours a week for evening attendance. 
State aid to industrial schools for boys and girls between 
fourteen and sixteen is given where girls put in half the day 
in household arts work. In some of the schools the girls take 
a little of each subject for two years and in other schools a 
little of each for the first year and speciaHze in the second. 



634 Principles of Secondary Education 

A department of homemaking in connection with a school 
of agriculture is state-aided, and the household arts work is 
given more time than in ordinary programs. 

The last general legislature made available for Canning 
Club work in Tennessee about $5000. It is necessary for 
the counties to raise at least $200 and the state will then give 
$100, the state giving one half as much as the county raises, 
up to $500. The Canning Club work has encouraged interest 
in gardening and home work. Similar practices with regard 
to stimulating interest in household arts through Canning 
Clubs have been adopted in other southern states. 

In Ohio any board of education may establish and main- 
tain domestic science, manual training, and commercial de- 
partments, vocational and trade schools, also kindergartens, 
in connection with the public school systems, and pay the ex- 
penses of establishing and maintaining such schools from the 
public school funds as other expenses are paid. The state 
does not compel nor provide support for any of these subjects 
excepting agriculture, which is left optional for city districts. 
Ohio was the first state to enact a law compelling part-time 
schooling for those engaged in wage-earning occupations 
and requiring attendance of all under seventeen years of age 
who have not completed the fifth year of school. Any who 
have not completed the eighth year of school and are not regu- 
larly employed must attend regular school until they have either 
completed the eighth grade, secured employment, or reached 
the seventeenth year. Household arts is offered girls in 
regular and continuation schools in those cities that have, by 
referendum to the board of education of the community, 
established continuation and part-time classes. The recent 
school survey has awakened wide interest which will doubtless 
result in early legislation. The public school system of Cin- 
cinnati has taken advantage of the state right to establish 
vocational training departments, as have also the cities of 
Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, and some others. 



Household Arts 635 

Iowa has no special legislation along the lines of vocational 
education, strictly speaking. They have some legislation 
relating to industrial work in the public schools, and the 34th 
general assembly passed a law, amended by the 35th general 
assembly, providing state supervision and state financial 
aid for a normal training course in the high schools. This 
course includes elementary pedagogy and art of teaching 
elementary agriculture and home economics. One hundred 
and twenty-nine of these high school normal training courses 
have been established under authority of this law. In each 
of these high school districts, domestic science is taught, and 
many other high schools not having the normal courses are 
teaching domestic science. The law provides an appropria- 
tion of $100,000 for the first year and $125,000 for each year 
thereafter. It also provides that the aid given each school 
shall be $750 annually. So general and widespread has become 
the interest in this subject in Iowa that the last legislature 
passed a law making the teaching of agriculture and domestic- 
science compulsory in all public schools of the state after July i, 
1 9 1 5 . Another law provides for state aid to consolidated schools 
provided that there is the necessary department and equipment 
for teaching agriculture, home economics, and manual training, 
and employing teachers qualified to teach these subjects. Iowa 
shows a fine record : specially equipped trains which make 
tours of the state with short stops where brief lectures are 
given ; extension work and short courses attended last year by 
15,400 women regularly enrolled; Farmers' Institutes; health 
contests — all supported by the extension department of the 
state. A survey of the rural districts made under supervision 
of the child welfare department to secure vital statistics and 
complete information in regard to the health of children, the 
first of the kind ever undertaken in the United States, indicates 
the interest taken in the science of right living. " Home Eco- 
nomics in Iowa is not a mere question of cooking and sewing ; 
it is demanding the best thought and highest culture in the 



636 Principles of Secondary Education 

study and the solution of the most vital problems that concern 
the physical, mental, and moral development of our people 
and that make for a better civihzation." 

The Indiana legislature established, by means of the most 
comprehensive statute yet enacted, a state system of vocational 
education, giving state aid in domestic science, industries, 
and agriculture, through all-day, part-time, continuation, and 
evening schools. It provides that elementary domestic 
science be taught in all grades of city, town, and township 
schools and outlines the course of study, but provides no 
state aid for what it terms prevocational instruction to dis- 
tinguish it from the work to be done in the special vocational 
departments or schools further provided for by the law. It 
also provides that the board of education shall outline a 
course of study in domestic science as well as agriculture and 
industrial work, which it may require high schools to offer as 
regular courses. The state regulates the qualifications of the 
teachers and provides aid in the maintenance of approved 
vocational schools or departments for domestic science, in- 
dustries, and agriculture by payment annually of an amount 
equal to two thirds of the sum expended annually for instruc- 
tion in these technical and vocational subjects. Schools, cities, 
and townships are reimbursed to the extent of one half the sum 
expended for tuition in approved vocational schools. The 
law requires each local community to erect and equip rooms or 
buildings in which to teach these vocational subjects and for use 
as social centers suitable for the legal voters of any township. 
A special tax of one cent is authorized, and any surplus not 
allotted to schools is to be placed in a permanent fund for 
the support and encouragement of vocational education. 

In Wisconsin a recent law grants special aid to county 
schools of agriculture and domestic science equal to two 
thirds of the amount actually expended for maintaining such 
schools during the year, provided that the total amount 
shall not exceed $6000 to any one school in one year when the 



Household Arts 637 

average daily attendance shall not be less than one hundred 
and twelve pupils, nor exceed the sum of $8000 when the average 
attendance shall not exceed one hundred and eighty-seven 
pupils. Minimum wage for teachers of domestic science is es- 
tablished by the provision that state aid shall not be granted 
to any school where the salary paid to any teacher is less than 
$60 per month. The act of 191 2 extended aid from the 
treasury of the commonwealth to classes in household arts, 
approved by the board of education, for women, no matter 
what occupation they engage in during the day ; whereas pre- 
viously state aid for evening instruction was confined to those 
classes made up entirely of those who were employed during 
the daytime in occupations for which the work of the evening 
class gave more or less direct preparation. 

Federal Subsidies. — Federal aid for vocational education 
is likely to be granted at an early date, providing for extension 
teaching and preparation of teachers for service in vocational 
schools giving instruction, through all-day, part-time, and con- 
tinuation and evening classes, for the farm, the home, and the 
shop. The conditions surrounding the appropriation of 
moneys to the states is the only debatable question, and the 
working out of this problem as to the relationship of the 
national government to the states in the field of education is 
of interest to all. 



TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What principles should control the organization of a course in 
household arts in secondary schools ? 

2. Would it be possible to relate the work more directly to both home 
and school life by the choice of problems ? 

3. Would you recommend a course of study being planned upon the 
basis of problems related to the girl, the environment, the locality, and 
other subjects in the school program, rather than upon topics ? 

4. What would you have our girls become at the end of their high 
school course ? 



638 Principles of Secondary Educatio7i 

5. Is the school contributing all it might to the production of this 
kind of young womanhood ? 

6. What have been the causes contributing to the changes in the char- 
acter of home life ? 

7. What is feminism, and what its relation to instruction in the public 
schools ? 

8. What has necessitated the introduction of household arts into the 
schools ? 

9. Are you content to have this subject taught merely as sewing and 
cooking ? 

10. What vocational outlets are there for girls following this course ? 

11. What minimum of time for household arts recitations per week 
should be demanded ? 

12. How may the work be motivated ? 

13. What equipment does the work require? 

14. If household arts in high schools is to emphasize the reasons for 
doing things, and is to be given largely from the point of view of applied 
science, how can the curriculum be arranged that the girl may have 
some science to apply ? 

15. Can a course in general science be given in the first year and the 
course in foods left until the second year ? 

16. Should class work in household arts which is purely manipulative 
be given high school credit ? If so, in which course ? 

17. Should a high school offer elementary courses in cooking and sew- 
ing without credit , where such courses are not provided by the elementary 
schools ? 

18. How many units in household arts should be required ? 

19. Should there be a better standardization of teachers of household 
arts ? 

20. To what extent are textbooks advantageous in the teaching of 
this subject ? 

21. What is the standard in household arts as taught in England, 
Switzerland, and Germany compared with its standard in the United 
States ? 

22. Are the states doing as much for girls as for boys in specialized 
instruction ? 

23. What distinction is there between household arts taught in trade, 
practical arts, vocational, or technical schools and in a general high school 
course ? 

24. Localities have adopted various names for the subject here called 
household arts. The National Society has adopted the term home 
economics. Domestic science and domestic art are names used in 



Household Arts 639 

secondary schools ; domestic economy is adopted by some. What name 
do you consider best, and why ? 

REFERENCES 

Bevier, Isabel, and Usher, Susannah. Rome Economics Movement. 
Boston, 1906. 

Conference of Association of Domestic Science Teachers. Liverpool, 
1909. 

CooLEY, Anna M. Domestic Art in Woman'' s Education. New York, 
1911. 

England, Board of Education. Regulations for the Training of Teachers 
of Domestic Subjects, 1909. Circular 719. Teaching of Needlework, 
1909. 
Regulations for Secondary Schools, 1907, 1908, 1909. 
Special Reports on Educational Subjects. Vol. I, 1896-1897, Domestic 
Economy Teaching; Vol. II, 1878, The Heuristic Method of Teach- 
ing or the Art of making Children discover Things for Themselves ; 
Vol. VIII, 1902, Education in the Netherlands; Vol. XVI, 1896, 
School Training for the Home Duties of Women, Belgium, Sweden, 
Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, France; Vol. XIX, 1907, School 
Training for the Home Duties of Women (Germany and Austria). 

HoDSON, F., editor. Broad Lines in Science Teaching. London, 1909. 

International Council of Women. Health of the Nations. Aberdeen, 
1906. 

Ireland, Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. Program 
for Day Secondary Schools. 1908. 
Program of the Irish Training School of Domestic Economy, 1909-1910. 

KiNNE, Helen. Equipment for Domestic Science Teaching. New York, 
1909. 
Methods of Teaching Domestic Science. New York, 191 2. 

Lake Placid Reports on Home Ecomonlcs. Boston, 1899-1909. 

Norton, A. P. Teaching of Home Economics. Boston, 1910. 

Ravenhill, Alice. Housecraft in Secondary Schools for Girls. Edu- 
cation, February 14, 21, 28, March 6, 13, 1908. 
Teaching of Domestic Science in the United States. In English 
Board of Education, Special Reports, Vol. XV. London, 1905. 

Report of Proceedings of Fourth International Congress on Technical 
Education (London, 1897), containing (i) History of Training Schools 
for Teachers of Domestic Economy in England; (2) Treatment of 
Domestic Science as an Element in Girls' Education; (3) The Relation 
between General and Technical Education; (4) Technical Education 



640 Principles of Secondary Education 

in Secondary Schools ; (5) The Teaching of Domestic Economy in 
Girls' Secondary Schools. 

Report of the London County Council Conference of Teachers, 1910. 
(i) The Correlation between the Teaching of Domestic Economy and 
Experimental Science; (2) Practical Domestic Economy Teaching 
in a Secondary School. 

Smyth, A. Watt. Teaching of Domestic Subjects. Physical Deteriora- 
tion. London, 1904. 

Women's Industrial Council, (i) Technical Education for Girls in England 
, and Elsewhere, 1897. (2) Domestic Science Teaching, 1904. (3) 
Technical Education for Women and Girls, at Home and Abroad, 
I 904-1 905. 

WooLMAN, M. S. The Making of a Trade School. Boston, 1910. 

Sewing — A History of Education. Household Arts Review, February, 
1910. 



CHAPTER XVII 
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 

SCOPE OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. — In a certain 
sense, all education is vocational in that it aims to prepare 
one for the more efficient and satisfactory performance of the 
activities of life. Even liberal education is in a sense voca- 
tional, for in its various forms it has aimed to prepare for the 
life or calling or " vocation " of a statesman or man of public 
affairs, of the gentleman, of an ecclesiastic, or whatever form 
the particular social concept of the Uberally educated man 
may have taken. Even in the classical period, when the con- 
ception of liberal education was formed, it aimed to produce 
the philosopher in Greece, the orator in Rome, each defined 
as the man efficient in the application of his knowledge. In 
its earlier historic stages elementary education was always 
vocational, in that it was merely a preparatory stage to some 
form of higher education, whether the vocation to be followed 
was that of a scholar, an ecclesiastic, a gentleman, a trades- 
man, or a craftsman. 

But in the ordinary usage of the term, vocational education 
is differentiated from the more general aspects of education, 
in that the chief concern of education in its vocational form 
is the training in the practical application of knowledge 
acquired in early stages of the educational process and the 
education of selected or differentiated groups. In this sense, 
vocational education includes all the various forms of higher 
or professional education, as that for the law, for medicine, 
for the Christian ministry, and for the various phases of en- 
gineering. So also agricultural education, commercial educa- 
tion, and allied subjects all represent phases of vocational 
2 T 641 



642 Principles of Secondary Edttcation 

education, though frequently considered as professional edu- 
cation as distinguished from those vocations where the manual 
element is more prominent and the intellectual or scientific is 
more elementary in character. This last phase, the one gen- 
erally indicated as vocational education, is termed industrial 
education. 

The instruction of girls in general household activities 
under the name of household arts or ecomony is in a very 
broad sense vocational. 

The prominence into which these various phases of voca- 
tional education have come of late is due to very profound 
social and economic changes which are taking place in modern 
society. Since these changes affect each special aspect of the 
subject, they are enumerated in the following discussion of 
industrial, commercial, agricultural education, and in the 
chapter on Household Arts. The general educational bearing 
of these fundamental changes is presented in the concluding 
chapter of this volume on the Reorganization of Secondary 
Education. 

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. General Definition. — The 

term " industrial education " may be used in a very compre- 
hensive sense or in a more restricted meaning. In a large way 
the term includes all education relating to the industries, and 
in this sense would include instruction in industrial arts in the 
elementary school, trade and technical instruction designed 
for the industrial worker, and the professional education of 
the engineering schools. In common usage, however, the 
term is employed in a more limited fashion as denoting the 
field of vocational education designed to meet the needs of 
the manual worker in the trades and industries, and in this 
sense it is used in this chapter. In this conception industrial 
education has to do with the secondary field, beyond the point 
at which boys and girls leave the elementary school and below 
the college. 



Vocational Education 643 

Origin of the Present Problem. — The need for industrial 
education, as far as it is a matter of schools, has arisen since 
the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century, which in- 
troduced the factory system as the universal type of modern 
industrial organization. During the four or five centuries 
when the handicraft system of small masters and establish- 
ments was the prevailing basis of production, the matter of 
industrial training was met in a simple and, on the whole, 
a competent manner within the conduct and organization of 
trade procedure. 

The effects of the factory system were : (i) that division 
of labor, constantly extended, no longer allowed the learner, 
if employed to the greatest economic advantage, to obtain 
a broad experience in all branches of a craft ; and (2) that 
the entire relation between employer and learner was changed. 
The master craftsman, no longer taking direct part in the 
processes of production, became the capitalist employer, 
whose first concern is the development of highest immediate 
productive efficiency. The learner, on the other hand, enter- 
ing into such an organization, faces, for the most part, a wage- 
earning career in which his place will be determined not alone 
by his abilities and ambitions, but by the particular oppor- 
tunities afforded him for breadth of experience and for com- 
prehension of these experiences. In such a situation it has 
ceased to be the immediate interest of the employer to bestow 
more attention upon the learner than will suffice to make 
him most rapidly into a productive unit at some process in 
the range of the establishment. Still less is there economic 
incentive for the wage-earning worker in a commercial estab- 
lishment to give time and effort to extend the training of the 
learner. Productive efficiency is the sole aim of the modern 
organization of industry. For this purpose it is a highly 
adapted instrument, but education lies outside of this purpose. 
These latter considerations operate so powerfully upon the 
case that even in trades representing very little division of 



644 Principles of Secondary Edttcation 

labor, the value of apprenticeship training has often fallen 
to a very low point. 

Factors in the Problem. — To sum up, in this connection, 
the situation presented by modern industrial conditions, the 
following facts should be noted. First, grades of skill and the 
extent to which division of labor is carried vary greatly in 
different industries. Second, the typical manufacturing in- 
dustries employ a large number of workers of low-grade skill, 
who require little initial instruction or experience to adapt 
themselves to their narrow range of machine operations ; and 
a smaller number of highly skilled workers demanding for their 
equipment breadth of experience and trained intelHgence. 
Third, the economic interest of the employer is mainly con- 
cerned with the supply of the latter class of workers, and 
any measures undertaken by him to train such a class are 
necessarily based on the prospect of future return and not 
of immediate profit. Fourth, such training on the part of 
the employer involves labor in addition to the purely pro- 
ductive work of an industrial organization, and for that reason 
an additional element of expense. This element of expense 
and the extreme mobility of labor under modern conditions, 
permitting no guarantee to the employer that the learner 
will remain in his employ after receiving a training, constitute 
the chief obstacles to the development of adequate measures 
of industrial training within commercial establishments. To 
these obstacles is added the fact that, besides skill of hand, 
modern industry requires in its expert workers increasing 
knowledge of mathematics, science, drawing, and technical 
matters in order to insure proper comprehension of new 
methods and new forces ; and for instruction in these branches 
the organization and personnel of an industrial establishment 
are not well adapted. 

These conditions, under which modern industry finds the 
task of competently training high-grade workers within its own 
organization difi&cult, expensive, and not assuredly profitable, 



Vocational Education 645 

have brought forward the demand for an outside agency, 
viz., the school, to assist in the task. The problem thus pre- 
sented of supplying the deficiencies of training under com- 
mercial conditions, and of supplementing this training by 
additional instruction, is evidently one that must find its 
solution in particular and varied measures adapted to the 
needs prescribed by different locaHties and different industries. 
From the nature of the case there can be no general solution, 
but only a multitude of particular solutions. 

The precise ends, then, placed before industrial education, 
looked at from this purely economic aspect, are to supply 
either breadth of practical experience along particular lines, 
or knowledge leading to the comprehension of technical 
practice, or both, to young people having opportunities or 
ambitions to fit themselves as high-grade workers. 

European Experience. — To this problem the leading coun- 
tries of western Europe have addressed themselves with in- 
creasing seriousness for something over half a century, and 
in the United States conviction as to its importance has been 
rapidly developing during the last few years. The particular 
wa3^s in which European countries have approached the prob- 
lem have been markedly differentiated by racial temperament, 
institutional development, and industrial conditions. Ger- 
many, with her poHcy of fostering the old trade gilds and their 
supervision of apprenticeship, has found her particular problem 
met to a large extent by specialized industrial continuation 
schools, at first conducted in the evening and now to an in- 
creasing extent in the day. These schools have devoted them- 
selves almost wholly to supplementary technical instruction ; 
but in the continuation schools of Munich, Dr. Kerschensteiner 
has introduced trade work both to broaden the commercial 
routine and to lend zest and point to the other instruction. 

One of the chief reasons why the continuation schools fulfil 
such an important function in German life is the fact that 
apprenticeship is not only general, but is entered into at the 



646 Principles of Secondary Education 

age of fourteen, at the time when youths leave the compulsory 
Volksschule. Another feature that distinguishes the German 
continuation schools, though shared to some extent with those 
of Austria and Switzerland, and which marks their seriousness 
of purpose, is that attendance upon them is generally com- 
pulsory until seventeen or eighteen years of age. In the cases 
where the continuation school classes have been brought into 
the day, employers are compelled by law to allow their ap- 
prentices time for attendance. Compulsory attendance upon 
the primary school is in this way immediately followed by the 
compulsory attendance at continuation schools of all boys, 
and sometimes girls, who do not attend higher schools. 

United States. — In the United States the conditions which 
force attention to the problem of industrial education have 
only recently appeared. This country has Hved over the 
long industrial history of western Europe in the brief span of 
little more than a century. Beginning with many of the ac- 
tivities of the hunting and fishing stage, as illustrated in the 
life of the pioneer and settler, eastern America passed in rapid 
succession through the agricultural or farming stage and the 
handicraft period, with its independent town economy, and 
reached in the closing years of the nineteenth century a highly 
developed national system marked by immense manufacturing 
growth. 

Throughout this rapid evolution, almost to the present time, 
the great demand for intelligent labor, consequent upon the 
exploitation of the enormous natural resources of the country, 
has afforded countless opportunities for advancement to the 
individual workman gifted with superior wit and adaptabihty. 
Practical ingenuity and power of quick comprehension and 
adjustment have often under these conditions been of more 
importance in winning positions of leadership and master- 
ship than highly trained skill and technical knowledge. 
When to this situation has been added an enormous current 
of immigration that has served to supply not only skilled work- 



Vocational Education 647 

men, but a great army of unskilled and semi-skilled workers 
increasingly needed for manufacturing operations, it is appar- 
ent why for a generation of advanced industrial organization 
both the American employer and the native-born American 
workman have remained comparatively indifferent to the need 
of industrial education. 

This period, however, has come nearly to an end, and the 
stress of international competition and lowered margins of 
profit make it more and more evident that American industrial 
development can be maintained only by recourse to old-world 
methods, and the adoption of comprehensive and effective 
measures that will insure a competent supply of highly expert 
workers. What has already been accomplished in the United 
States is largely the result of private enterprise and philan- 
thropy. Until within a very few years, the public school 
system has given little or no attention to industrial education 
and has devoted its energies entirely to general and non- 
vocational instruction. 

Evening Schools. — The first serious efforts to react upon 
the industrial situation were represented in the estabhshment 
of a number of important evening schools affording instruction 
in drawing, science, and mathematics. Cooper Union and 
the Mechanics Institute of New York, FrankHn Union and the 
Spring Garden Institute of Philadelphia, the Ohio Mechanics 
Institute of Cincinnati, and the Virginia Mechanics Institute 
of Richmond were all founded or opened their classes about 
the middle of the nineteenth century. Such schools and many 
others, among which should be mentioned the evening classes 
of the Young Men's Christian Association, have accomplished 
an important work in supplying supplementary technical 
instruction to the ambitious young workingman in the larger 
cities. Even in this direction, however, which represents 
the simplest and least expensive approach to industrial educa- 
tion, the pubHc schools have been slow to follow. Their 
concern has been almost entirely with general studies, and it 



648 Principles of Secondary Education 

is only of late years that differentiated and specialized courses, 
related to industrial practice, have been introduced in the 
public schools of a few of the more important cities. 

The early work of the evening industrial and technical 
schools consisted of various lines of drawing, to which were 
gradually added courses in science, mathematics, and technical 
subjects. Beginning about 1890, certain of these institutions 
established practical shop courses in a few of the high-grade 
mechanical trades, intended to broaden the experience 
obtained by the student during the day. In a few cases such 
classes have been incorporated in pubHc evening schools, 
where they have sometimes performed a valuable practical 
service in advancing those employed at like occupations during 
the day, and sometimes have served merely to give a little 
tool dexterity to the amateur or the clerk. 

Technical Schools. — The next important reaction of or- 
ganized education upon the industrial situation was that which 
took place for the most part in the period of mining and rail- 
road expansion following the Civil War, and which resulted 
in the establishment of many engineering schools or institutes 
of technology. The establishment of such schools was at 
first through private foundation, but the passage of the Morrill 
Act in 1862, by which large land grants were made to the states 
for the support of instruction in the agricultural and mechani- 
cal arts, resulted shortly in the inclusion of engineering de- 
partments in most of the western colleges and universities. 
The development of this type of institution has been wide- 
spread in the United States, and has produced an institution 
eqijal, and in some respects superior, to anything of its kind 
to be found abroad. The function of such schools is to pro- 
duce engineering and technical experts, the men needed to 
design industrial constructions, to devise technical processes, 
and to superintend industrial production. 

Manual Training. — The first serious agitation for the 
inclusion of industrial training in the public schools was not 



Vocational Education 649 

for real vocational training, but for the inclusion of manual 
work in the general course of study as an element of culture 
and general efhciency. This is to be considered in a sub- 
sequent section of this chapter. 

Trade Schools. — The first important attempt to deal with 
the problem of industrial training in day schools took the form 
of a trade school for the building trades. In 1881 the New 
York Trade School was founded by Richard T. Auchmuty. 
The founder was an architect by profession, and felt very 
keenly the small part played by American-trained mechanics 
in the various building trades. Convinced that the apprentice- 
ship system in the building trades was no longer effective, and 
that modern conditions gave no hope of its revival, he turned 
to the plan of a trade school as the only solution of the problem. 
To meet the economic difficulties involved in attendance, the 
courses in the school are only four months in duration, and 
only young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty- 
four are admitted. The aim of the school is to give a knowl- 
edge of processes and a skill of hand sufficient for immediate 
practical usefulness, leaving speed and perfected skill to be 
developed in after experience. 

The development of schools which aim to take the place 
of apprenticeship after this point, in whole or in part, was very 
gradual. In the first twenty years after the New York Trade 
School was founded, only two important institutions were 
added, viz. the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades 
near Philadelphia, and the Baron de Hirsch Trade School of 
New York. Since the year 19 10 some ten or twelve institu- 
tions that may strictly be called trade schools have developed 
in different parts of the country under either public or private 
support, as well as a number of commercially conducted schools 
in the building and other trades. In 1907 the trade school 
entered upon the stage of public administration. In that year 
the already established Milwaukee School of Trades was taken 
over by the city under the terms of the industrial education 



650 Principles of Secondary JEdtication 

law passed by the Wisconsin legislature. Since that date 
public trade schools have been opened in Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania ; Portland, Oregon ; Worcester, Massachusetts ; 
and Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Certain of these schools — the New York Trade School and 
the Baron de Hirsch School — represent the short-course 
type ; the others offer courses of two or three years in which 
practical trade training is supplemented by instruction in 
drawing and technical practice, and in some cases by science 
and mathematics. Tuition in such schools is either free or on 
a nominal basis, a condition made possible either by large 
endowments or by public support. Such schools are still some- 
what in the experimental stage. They labor under very severe 
economic difhculties, first among which is the problem of 
support presented to the student worker during the period 
of instruction. Training for the skilled trades in the United 
States is in common practice restricted to the period above 
sixteen years of age, and as the great bulk of the youth who 
will form the mechanics and industrial workers of the country 
must of necessity enter upon remunerative work at sixteen 
or shortly after, the sacrifices necessary to permit attendance 
at a trade school can be expected only from a comparative 
few. The second aspect of the economic problem in relation 
to such schools is found in the large expense of administration, 
instruction, materials, and physical maintenance in proportion 
to the number of students that can- be instructed. Further- 
more, it is only in a few high-grade trades, the full command 
of which involves extensive subject matter and breadth of 
experience, that trade-school training can claim sufficient 
advantages over training under commercial conditions to 
repay its expense. It is, consequently, only in cities repre- 
senting exceptional concentration of such industries that trade 
schools can expect support, and it is not yet entirely clear 
whether the results obtained will prove proportionate to their 
expense. 



Vocational Education 651 

In the earlier agitation for industrial training in the United 
States, the trade school occupied the forefront of discussion 
and was usually considered as the one institution needed to 
solve the entire problem, but as the great economic difficulties 
of attendance for youth and young men who are to become 
ordinary workmen have come to be better apprehended, it is 
seen that such institutions can, so far as numbers are con- 
cerned, fulfil only a very subordinate office. This office in 
the case of the long-course schools will probably be to train 
a comparatively small number of highly equipped workers in 
a few of the skilled trades. 

Preparatory Trade Schools. — ■ Conditions similar to those 
noted above in the case of England have recently brought 
forward in the Eastern states the t}^e of school called a pre- 
paratory trade school or intermediate industrial school. The 
situation of the fourteen-year-old boy in the United States 
is more acute even than in England, inasmuch as the disin- 
clination on the part of employers in the skilled trades and 
high-grade industries to employ youths below sixteen years 
of age is much more general. Since the report of the Massa- 
chusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education in 
1906, which pointed out the large numbers of boys and girls 
in that state who leave school at fourteen before graduation 
from the elementary school, the demorahzing influences that 
surround them, and the lack of economic progress made by 
such children, interest in a type of industrial school that shall 
aim particularly at the ages from fourteen to sixteen has been 
steadily growing. 

The first school of this tj^pe to be established was at Roches- 
ter, New York, in 1908. Since then a considerable number of 
schools providing practical work in one or more of the large 
trade groups, together with related instruction in drawing, 
elementary science, history, English, shop calculations, 
accounting, and business forms, have been organized in Mass- 
achusetts and the state of New York. Such schools aim to 



652 Principles of Secondary Education 

give the advantage of some degree of industrial intelligence 
and some knowledge of shop methods and materials to the 
boy or girl of sixteen entering upon industrial employment, 
rather than to impart a trade training. 

This type of school points to the facts that forces other than 
the purely economic enter into the movement for industrial 
education, and that responsibilities are involved in the con- 
duct of such education beyond those of developing industrial 
efhciency. The causes that have brought into being the 
preparatory trade schools in the United States are not alone 
the economic advantage to the industries in preparing better 
material for entrance therein — an advantage that employers 
would be quick to perceive yet slow to bring about — but 
rather the recognition on the part of the public of a social 
obligation to better the opportunities for great numbers of 
young persons to enter upon more substantial careers. These 
schools also serve to illustrate the fact that any institution 
which enters upon the task of industrial education cannot 
escape the responsibility of advancing at the same time the 
training of its students in social and civic effi,ciency. It is 
very evident that, under any form of representative govern- 
ment, no school that does not attempt to instruct the indi- 
vidual in his relations to the state as well as to promote his 
economic efficiency can command public support or claim a 
large place in deahng with the education of youth. 

Part-time and Cooperative Flan. — The two schools just 
described aim to prepare for entrance into the industries by 
training beginners, a task economically justifiable only when 
such training cannot be obtained under commercial conditions. 
Of late years new types of school — the part-time day school 
and the cooperative school — that aim to give instruction 
to the individual at the same time that he is gaining practical 
experience in the industry have assumed importance. Such 
schools do not attempt the entire task of training the learner 
at any period, but divide the work with organized industry, 



Vocational Education 653 

leaving to industry the practical training, and providing in 
the school those elements that industry cannot readily supply. 
These schools, together with evening industrial schools and 
correspondence schools, bring formal instruction into essentially 
cooperative relations with industry, avoiding the large finan- 
cial burden of practical trade training, with its many diffi- 
cult problems, and undertaking only those lines of instruction 
with which the school is prepared to deal readily and effectively. 
The important practical results of the German, and, in par- 
ticular, the Munich, continuation schools, which have brought 
instruction into the period of the regular working day, have 
produced a growing conviction as to the importance of such 
schools in the development of industrial education in America. 
The more individuahstic spirit under which industry is con- 
ducted in the United States, and the great variety of condi- 
tions represented, make progress toward such an arrangement 
necessarily a very gradual matter, and it will undoubtedly 
be a considerable time before manufacturers will reach any 
general agreement to allow learners in their establishments to 
attend industrial schools during the working hours. Never- 
theless, the increasing discussion and study of this plan, and 
the recognition of its important advantages, indicate that its 
considerable extension may be expected in the near future. 
Such a plan is more rapidly applied in cities, where the con- 
centration of a few high-grade industries gives a large number 
of apprentices and learners in particular fines. If such schools 
are to increase beyond the field of these few skilled trades, it 
is e\'ident that the problems of instruction become complex 
and difficult. In the case of low-grade factory industries, 
where fittle opportunity for technical instruction is to be 
found in industrial content, school instruction must neces- 
sarily assume other directions and find its opportunity in in- 
creasing the social horizon or home-keeping usefulness of the 
pupil, or in aiding to develop capacity for change of occupa- 
tion. It is evident that the beginnings of such schools as are 



654 Principles of Secondary Education 

represented at Cincinnati and Worcester, Massachusetts, must 
of necessity be upon a voluntary attendance basis, and many 
years must obviously elapse before public opinion in the United 
States reaches the point of authorizing compulsory attend- 
ance for a term of years, as is the case in southern Germany. 

The cooperative plan by which the students spend half 
their time at work in industrial establishments and half in 
school, and which was first developed in the Engineering 
Department of the University of Cincinnati, has lately been 
appHed to students of high school grade. This plan differs 
from the part-time plan in some important respects. In the 
first place the student body consists of enrolled high school 
students and not of apprentices already employed in com- 
mercial establishments. This fact insures a higher grade of 
academic preparation than is generally the case with appren- 
tices, and the larger amount of time spent in school allows 
the general education to be carried much further. Encourag- 
ing beginnings have been made with this type of school at 
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and Cincinnati, Ohio ; but it is too 
early to define its future place. Whether, on the one hand, any 
considerable number of those aiming at and fitted for regular 
mechanic's work in the trades will be drawn to such schools, 
or whether, on the other hand, the schools will develop ca- 
pacity for training leaders of the foreman and expert type, 
remains to be seen. 

In this same group of supplementary or cooperating 
schools might be included the correspondence schools, which 
enroll a great number of young men engaged in industrial 
employment in the United States, and afford instruction by 
mail in a large number of technical subjects. 

Apprenticeship and Corporation Schools. — The apprentice- 
ship or corporation school, which has been developed in 
several industrial corporations of large size in the United 
States, is in a sense a part-time school in which both instruc- 
tion and practical training are given within the commercial 



Vocational Education 655 

establishment. Such a plan, which allows a maximum 
coordination of all lines of instruction, will probably be 
increasingly adopted in the case of railroads and other 
large corporations dealing with high-grade workers ; but 
for the great majority of industrial establishments such 
a system is hardly practicable, and division of labor between 
the employer on the one hand and the public school on the 
other is the method making for greatest efficiency and 
economy. 

Secondary Technical Schools. — The middle technical schools 
of Germany have no exact counterpart in the United States, 
but the several schools for the textile industry correspond 
closely to this type. Most prominent among these institu- 
tions are the Textile School of the Pennsylvania Museum at 
Philadelphia, established 1884 and noted for the high grade 
of its instruction, three state-aided schools in Massachusetts, 
at Lowell, New Bedford, and Fall River, and the Textile 
Department of the Georgia School of Technology at Atlanta. 
None of these schools requires previous practical training 
in the textile industry for admission, but in each school there 
are a number of mature students with such experience, and 
the character of the work approximates closely to that of 
the German schools. 

Of late years other technical schools or classes of secondary 
rank have appeared, such as the day courses in machine 
design and appHed electricity of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 
the Technological High School of the Ohio Mechanics In- 
stitute at Cincinnati, and certain courses in the Drexel In- 
stitute, Philadelphia, and in the Lewis Institute of Chicago. 

Technical High Schools. — The question whether technical 
high schools with, the same requirements of admission as 
regular public secondary schools can be incorporated into the 
American public school systern has received considerable 
discussion of late years. The manual training schools, as 
above noted, do not contribute trained workers to the in- 



656 Principles of Secondary Education 

dustries, and strong arguments have been made toward the con- 
version of these schools into technical high schools, having the 
distinct purpose of preparing pupils for industrial leadership ; 
that is, for positions in industrial life requiring skill and techni- 
cal knowledge, and of greater importance and responsibility 
than those of skilled mechanics. The serious question facing 
such a proposition is whether such results can be secured from 
a type of school that does not require practical experience 
before entrance, as in the case of the German technical schools, 
or provide parallel experience, as in the case of the cooperative 
schools. 

Legislation. — Laws have been passed in a number of states 
providing for state supervision of industrial education and 
in several cases for the establishment and assistance of in- 
dustrial and trade schools. Massachusetts was the first to 
act in this direction. In 1906 a State Commission on In- 
dustrial Education was created, with power to superintend the 
establishment and maintenance of industrial schools for boys 
and girls. The act further provided for the reimbursement 
to cities and towns of a part of the amount expended for the 
support of such schools. After two years of trial, the plan 
of an independent commission was found to be unsatisfactory, 
and the administration of the law was vested in the reor- 
ganized State Board of Education, with provision for a special 
commissioner to deal with the field of industrial education. 
Since the reorganization the state board has accomplished 
very important work in standardizing, as to scope, courses 
of study, and methods of instruction, the various types of 
schools that come under its control, as well as in furthering 
the establishment of a considerable number of schools. 

New York State enacted a law in 1909 authorizing the estab- 
Ushment of general industrial schools, trade schools, and schools 
of agriculture, mechanical arts, and home making, and pro- 
viding for the award to such schools of a certain measure of 
state support. The disbursement of state moneys to the 



Vocational Education 657 

schools is by the terms of the act placed in the hands of the 
State Board of Education and made dependent upon its 
approval of the courses of study maintained. The estab- 
lishment and conduct of these schools is referred to the local 
boards of education, but the appointment of advisory boards 
representing the local trades, industries, and occupations is 
made compulsory. The duties of such advisory boards are 
to counsel with and advise the boards of education in regard 
to the establishment and conduct of the schools. 

In 1907 a law was passed in the state of Wisconsin empower- 
ing cities or school districts to estabhsh, conduct, and maintain 
schools for the purpose of giving practical instruction in the 
useful trades, and placing such schools under the supervision 
and control of the local school boards. Permission was given 
to the school boards to appoint advisory committees to assist 
in the administration of the trade schools, and provision was 
made for the levy of a special local tax for the establisljment 
and maintenance of such schools. The law was amended 
in 1909, and the minimum age of entrance to a trade school 
reduced from sixteen years to fourteen years for both young 
men and young women. In 191 1 the state passed a number 
of acts relating to industrial education, which among other 
measures provide : (i) for a modification of the apprenticeship 
laws of the state by which apprentices shall receive instruction 
for not less than five hours a week; (2) that whenever any 
evening school, continuation classes, industrial school, or com- 
mercial school shall be estabhshed for minors between the 
ages of fourteen and sixteen, working under permit provided 
by law, every such child shall attend such school not less than 
five hours per week for six months in each year, and every 
employer shall allow all minor employees over fourteen and 
under sixteen years of age a corresponding reduction in hours 
of work ; (3) that employers shall allow a reduction in hours 
of work at the time when the classes are held whenever the 
working time and that of the class coincide ; (4) that a state 
2 u 



658 Principles of Secondary Education 

board of education be appointed to control the distribution 
of state moneys under the act. 

Other states have recognized industrial education through 
legislative measures to the extent of providing official machinery 
for the development and supervision of such work, and in still 
other states investigating commissions have been appointed 
with the object of ultimate legislation in this direction. 

MANUAL TRAINING. — In spite of many objections, the 
term " manual training " has come to be generally apphed 
to all forms of constructive handwork when used as an agent 
in general education. When used in the broadest sense, in- 
struction in domestic art and science, and constructive work 
in various materials in the lower grades are included. In 
a narrower conception, the term is restricted to work with 
mechanical tools given to boys. The tendency in American 
usage is to distinguish sharply between manual training as 
a feature of general education and specialized tool instruction 
given to selected groups for purely vocational ends. 

Educational Value. Underlying Theory. — In the early 
agitation for the introduction of manual training in the eighties, 
the claims put forward for the new subject were in the main 
based on the conception of formal discipUne. Manual train- 
ing was entitled to a place in the school because it exercised the 
observation, trained the reasoning powers, and strengthened 
the will. Although it is doubtless true that public support 
of the new movement was due to a vague but sincere con- 
viction that the introduction of handwork stood for industrial 
training, educators as a rule most carefully refrained from 
advancing a claim for utilitarian value in the work, and all 
utterances were for the most part expressed strictly in terms 
of the prevaihng faculty psychology. 

The early practice of manual training in the elementary 
school was experimental and formal. The type exercise was 
the universal form in which handwork appeared, and it was 
not until the influence emanating from the Sloyd School of 



Vocational Education 659 

Boston (established in 1888) began to be felt that toolwork for 
boys assumed a more invigorating form. The fundamental 
principle of sloyd, which places emphasis on the value of 
working for a useful end, and so enHsting the interest of the 
worker, soon found acceptance in the general practice in the 
elementary school, and to a certain extent modified the methods 
of the manual training high school. 

About the same period, the doctrine of formal discipline 
began to lose its place as the corner stone of manual training 
philosophy. By the beginning of the present century the 
conviction had developed that constructive work comes into 
natural relations with the worker only when he contributes 
something of his own thought to attain the end placed before 
him. Out of this attitude, aided by a deeper study of the 
thought of such educational leaders as Froebel, Pestalozzi, 
and Herbart, and clarified by the emphasis of the psychologists 
on the unity of the mental processes, has developed the con- 
ception of manual training as a means of expression — a means 
of expression in terms of form, color, materials, muscular 
activity, and concrete ends — a means of expression peculiarly 
adapted to child life. 

During the last seven or eight years the growing emphasis 
placed upon the social meaning of education has caused atten- 
tion to be turned more and more to the subject matter or 
content side of manual training, and the conception of manual 
training, at least in the elementary school, has come more 
and more to be that of an educational instrument interpreting 
the fields of art and industry in terms adapted to child Hfe 
and the limitations of the school. 

All of this development in the philosophy of manual training 
has tended away from the employment of self-contained, 
formal courses towards the use of handwork as a medium of 
social experiences leading to the acquisition of knowledge. 
One of the most complete expressions of this idea is the employ- 
ment of constructive activities in the lower grades in the form 



66o Principles of Secondary Education 

of social occupations, which serve as centers for instruction in 
other branches. This type of work was developed to a notable 
extent in the University Elementary School conducted by 
Professor John Dewey from 1896 to 1905 in connection with 
the University of Chicago. 

Content of Course. — The early work in manual training 
in the elementary school was almost uniformly limited to the 
two or three upper grades, and consisted of shop work for boys 
and sewing and cooking for girls. From these grades hand- 
work slowly made its way downward, and at the present time 
such work, deaUng with a variety of materials, is given in all 
grades in many of the larger cities. The report of the Com- 
missioner of Education for 1910 states that in more than 
seven hundred cities of the United States, public schools have 
manual training in several years of the course, generally in 
the elementary grades, but frequently in all the years from 
kindergarten through the high school. 

Place of Manual Training in the Various National Systems. 
— Manual training was first recognized as a valuable feature 
of school work in European countries. As early as 1858 
Otto Cygngeus, who later organized the pubKc schools of 
Finland on a modern basis, outlined a plan of handwork for 
the primary schools of that country, and in 1866 some form 
of manual work was made compulsory in all primary schools 
for boys in country districts as well as in the training colleges 
for male teachers. 

In the United States, manual training came into being 
partly as the expression of a new educational philosophy and 
partly from dissatisfaction on the part of the pubHc with the 
results of the purely bookish curriculum of the schools. The 
first appearance of constructive work for clearly definite 
cultural purposes appears to have been in connection with the 
classes of the Workingmen's School founded in 1878 by the 
Ethical Culture Society of New York. In i'88o, through 
the efforts of Dr. Calvin A- Woodward, the St. Louis Manual 



Vocational Education 66 1 

Training School was opened in connection with Washington 
University. This school was a completely equipped high 
school, giving instruction in various lines of shopwork and in 
mechanical drafting, as well as in the regular secondary school 
subjects with exception of the classics. The work of this 
school attracted wide attention, and the success with which 
mechanic arts instruction had been incorporated in the cur- 
riculum led to the rapid organization of similar schools in other 
large cities. In Chicago, Toledo, Cleveland, and Cincinnati 
privately supported schools were organized from 1884 to 
1886, and public manual training schools were established 
in Baltimore in 1884, Philadelphia, 1885, and Omaha, 1886. 
The first provision for girls' work in these schools was made in 
the case of the Toledo Manual Training School, and included 
sewing, dressmaking, millinery, and cooking. The shopwork 
instruction given in these institutions comprised joinery, 
turning, pattern making, forging, and machine work, and 
sometimes foundry practice and tinsmithing. The character 
of this work has been very similar in different schools, and 
until late years has been almost uniformly based upon the 
principles of the " Russian System," so called because the 
ideas involved first gained recognition in the United States 
through the exhibit of the Imperial Technical School of St. 
Petersburg at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. The 
central idea of this system of shopwork instruction, which was 
developed in a technical school for the instruction of engineers, 
is the analysis of a craft into its fundamental processes and 
typical constructions, and the presentation of these elements 
in an orderly and sequential scheme as separate exercises. 

The rapid development of this type of secondary school, 
which has continued steadily since its inception, has resulted 
in an institution peculiarly American. In other countries 
the introduction and spread of manual training has been con- 
fined to the elementary school, and no institution of a purely 
educational character exists in Europe that represents any 



662 Principles of Secondary Education 

parallel to the comprehensive and costly equipment of these 
schools, nor, it should be said, to their rather vague and indefi- 
nite educational status. Established with the double purpose 
of affording a more liberal and realistic training for boys of 
secondary school age, and of developing capacities for in- 
dustrial careers, the records show that apart from the large 
number that go forward into engineering schools, only a trivial 
percentage of graduates from manual training high schools 
enter directly into industrial work, and that this small number 
go almost wholly into the " white shirt " occupations of drafts- 
man or administrative assistant. Of late years a tendency 
has become apparent to intensify the industrial side of the 
curriculum in such schools, and to transform them into techni- 
cal schools with a definite vocational basis. 

Industrial Education and Manual Training. — With the 
attention given to industrial education in the United States 
of late years, manual training has undoubtedly lost something 
of its importance in the public mind. It is probable, however, 
that this attitude is only temporary ; for all thoughtful con- 
sideration agrees that manual training in elementary schools 
constitutes an invaluable basis and, under the peculiarly un- 
settling influences of American life, a most necessary founda- 
tion for an effective system of industrial education. On the 
other hand, it seems probable, from many experiments now 
being conducted, that a semivocational or a prevocational 
type of manual training is likely to assume importance in 
large cities, which will afford to boys and girls, compelled 
to leave school at the compulsory age limit, an elective op- 
portunity for one or two years before that time to acquire some 
measure of industrial intelligence and to learn from a number 
of industrial experiences the general field for which they may 
be best fitted. Recent development has all been along the 
latter line, though no one type of school has demonstrated 
its superiority. 



Vocational Education 663 

COMMERCIAL EDUCATION 

ORIGIN AND NEED OF COMMERCIAL EDUCA- 
TION. — Commercial education is now generally understood 
to include all education which prepares specifically for busi- 
ness careers. It is no longer limited to the narrowly tech- 
nical or practical training which fits the student to perform 
the various operations that are necessary in the exchange of 
commodities, but it is generally taken to exclude the training 
that prepares for the work of production. With the practical 
training there is usually associated a certain amount of the 
liberal, or cultural, element of education. The proportion 
of this element differs widely in the almost innumerable forms 
of commercial education found in the United States and in 
foreign countries. In some it is practically nil ; in others, 
it comprises over nine tenths of the whole amount of time given 
to study. 

Recognition of this branch of education has been somewhat 
tardy, and can hardly be said to be complete even now. One 
reason for this is obviously the fact that a century ago the 
transaction of business was a simple matter compared with 
the complexity of our present organization. Commercial Hfe 
itself was not very highly developed, and was, indeed, con- 
sidered too humble a form of activity for the exercise of great 
talents, or for any special preparation. All this has been 
changed now. Commerce has so extended its sphere and 
has so developed its organism that it has become a field 
for the greatest intellects. Thorough preparation for it has 
become recognized as necessary, though there are still great 
divergences of opinion as to the form this preparation should 
take. Until recently it was not thought to be a function of 
either public or private schools — not a function of education, 
in the sense the word was used. For that matter, the very com- 
bination of the words " commercial education " is somewhat 
anomalous. Opposition to the conjunction came from both ele- 



664 Principles of Secondary Education 

merits. The ideals of education and of business were regarded 
as directly opposed. The earnestness with which educators 
opposed the introduction of the commercial aim, or com- 
merciahsm, into their methods is only paralleled by the cor- 
diality with which the majority of business men condemned 
the aims and methods of education as impractical and useless 
for their purposes. Within the past quarter century utterances 
by each party to the detriment of the other have been frequent, 
but they are nearly absent now. 

Recognition of commercial education has come, and the 
two warring elements have been partially reconciled. That 
they have been brought to realize the essential unity of their 
interests and their mutual helpfulness is not the least impor- 
tant advance made by education in the past quarter century. 
For, although the recognition of commercial education has been 
tardy, and although it is still in an experimental stage, its 
growth has been rapid enough to leave no doubt of its useful- 
ness. If the figures were not in themselves sufficient proof of 
the fact that commercial education has grown in response to 
a real need and a real demand, it would only be necessary to 
examine its early history both in this country and abroad. 

COMMERCIAL EDUCATION IN THE PUBLIC HIGH 
SCHOOL. — Commercial education in the pubhc schools is 
still in the experimental stage. It has never been conspicu- 
ously successful, nor has it until recently been of a kind that 
promised much advance on the private commercial schools. 
It has made its way with difficulty, and there is still a good deal 
of suspicion and some antagonism directed against it. In its 
history, the weakness of our public educational system is made 
apparent. In the first place, our educational system has 
nothing of the compactness and unity of those of many foreign 
countries, notably Germany. Control is so largely local that 
there is difficulty in instituting a new movement with any de- 
gree of unanimity. Much time and energy are wasted by the 
several states and cities in making experiments, and much 



Vocational Education 665 

more time is lost in waiting for others to make the experiments. 
It was with difficulty that even such so-called " innovations " 
as music, drawing, and physical training obtained recognition 
as desirable factors in public school education. In a similar 
way, the introduction of commercial studies was retarded by 
the lack of any unified system and the general conservatism 
of educators. Another objection was that there was no place 
for it. In the primary schools it was of course out of the 
question. The secondary or high schools were generally 
regarded as stepping stones to college and were dominated 
by the classical element. Certainly commercial studies were 
not academic. And although only a small part of the students 
in the high schools went to college it was felt that even those 
who did not should be given a substitute in the way of culture, 
so far as possible. There was no room for practical or voca- 
tional instruction. Nor were there any properly equipped 
teachers. 

But the demand became too insistent to be unheeded. 
Many students left the public high schools early in their course 
to enter the private business schools, where they might obtain 
preparation for their future careers. Naturally there was some 
murmuring on the part of taxpayers, who felt that the public 
schools they paid for should give the education for which 
their sons and daughters asked, whether it looked toward 
a professional or a business career. Scientific courses were 
given in most of the larger high schools — why not commercial? 
In response to the demand, short commercial courses, of two 
years (and sometimes of only one) , were offered in many high 
schools before 1890. The movement rapidly extended through- 
out the country. In 1893 there were 15,220 students in the 
United States in these courses; in 1895, there were 30,330. 
In the years 1 893-1 899 their numbers increased, while the 
enrollment of the private business schools decreased. This 
might seem to indicate that the courses were successful and 
were a good substitute for the private commercial school 



666 Principles of Secondary Education 

courses. Such was far from being the case. The majority 
of them were poor ; some were bad. They had come because 
the demand was too strong to be resisted, but they had little 
encouragement from above. The public educational system 
had simply accepted them as a necessary evil, and had slavishly 
imitated the private schools. The methods and the quality 
of instruction were inferior. There was little attempt to 
relate the cultural to the practical studies. A few new and 
alien branches had been grafted on an old tree, but they were 
poorly nourished by it and did not grow. The short com- 
mercial course in high schools was distinctly not a success, 
and began to fall into disrepute. The work of its graduates 
was compared unfavorably with that of regular four-year 
students. The private schools improved to meet the new com- 
petition, and far outstripped the public school courses, ham- 
pered as these were by all manner of difficulties. This is seen 
in the statistics of attendance. As has been said, the number 
of students pursuing commercial courses in the public high 
schools increased in 1 893-1 898, while that in the private com- 
mercial schools decreased. In the next five-year period, 1898- 
1903, both increased at about equal rates. In 1903-1908 the 
public high school enrollment in commercial courses seems 
actually to have decreased, while that of the private com- 
mercial schools increased. Doubtless the decrease was not 
so great as the government statistics make it appear, because 
of a change in the method of reporting. Indeed, the average 
number of students in the well-established commercial courses 
in public high schools has shown a fairly steady increase every 
year. For all that, the public school has not been a successful 
competitor of the private school 'in the latter's own field of 
short courses and purely technical training. 

Within recent years, however, a movement has begun which 
promises to place commercial education upon a stable basis 
in our public school system. In many of the larger cities 
of the country since 1900 separate high schools of commerce 



Vocational Education 667 

have been established. As early as 1892, far-sighted educators 
saw the necessity of this, if commercial education were to 
be successfully undertaken. In that year Professor Edmund 
J. James, then of the Wharton School in the University of 
Pennsylvania, in a notable address before the convention of 
the American Bankers' Association at Saratoga, made a plea 
for the establishment of separate commercial high schools. 
Interest in the proposition grew, and although it was some time 
before results showed, there was a general tendency to lengthen 
and broaden the commercial courses then given in the pubhc 
high schools. In 1898 the Central High School of Phila- 
delphia founded a separate commercial school with an entirely 
distinct curriculum. Soon after, the High School of Com- 
merce in New York was opened. Others followed in Pitts- 
burgh, Chicago, Brooklyn, Washington, and other cities. In 
the majority of these, the courses given were not materially dif- 
ferent from those of the ordinary high school, except that the 
classical studies were generally omitted, and commercial 
branches were taught. They had the advantage of segregating 
students of common aim and of affording superior facilities 
for work. The length of the course was ordinarily four years, 
instead of three, two, or one, as in the commercial course of 
the ordinary high school. Beyond these, there were no 
very great advances in them. They were better, but not 
essentially different from the earher type. But in a few cities, 
notably Philadelphia and New York, a different plan was put 
in operation. There was some attempt to look behind the de- 
mand for commercial education, to find the real need, and to fill 
it. It was a problem to be solved, and the school set itself 
to the task of solving it. If a business career was to be the 
goal, then all preparation should have' that in mind. The 
whole course of study had to be reconstructed and made to 
serve an entirely different function from that of the classical 
high school. Not merely the commercial branches proper, 
but all the studies in the curriculum, should be adapted to 



668 Principles of Secondary Education 

business needs. This was the solution proposed. The de- 
velopment of the plan has been slow, partly because of the 
need of much experiment, partly because of the dearth of 
suitable teachers. It was not an easy task to change pedagogi- 
cal methods to fit the new ideal. Some help was obtained 
from the study of German and other foreign commercial 
schools. The experimenting is still going on and much re- 
mains to be done. There has been little outward change in 
the curricula of these schools recently, but inwardly there 
has been great development. For instance, in the foreign 
languages, a fair ability in speaking is regarded as more im- 
portant than reading. In biology, chemistry, and the like, 
the commercial importance is demonstrated. Throughout 
the list, the practical application of knowledge is made and 
new relations between the studies shown. The whole scheme is 
becoming a unit, rather than a mixture of conflicting elements. 
There are only a few high schools of this type in the country 
now, but two recently established high schools of commerce 
— that of Boston and that of Cleveland — are based upon this 
new idea of commercial education. Many of the older ones 
are gradually tending toward it. It is beginning to be reahzed 
by educators that, if vocational instruction is to be given by 
the public schools, it should be given whole-heartedly, and 
not in a grudging acquiescence to a demand. It should pre- 
pare a student not merely to accomplish certain set tasks, but 
to grapple with new problems. J 

The five-year course of study of the High School of Com- 
merce of New York City is as follows : 

First Year. — Required : English (4) ; German, French, 
or Spanish (4) ; algebra (4) ; biology (with especial reference 
to materials of commerce) (4) ; business knowledge and 
practice ^ (6) ; dramng (second half year) (i) ; physical 
training ^ (2) ; music, (i) ; Total, 26 periods. 

^ Including local industries and government of the City of New York (2) ; 
business writing (2) ; business arithmetic, business forms and methods (2). 
2 Including Physiology. 



Vocational Education 669 

Second Year. — Required : English (3) ; German, French, 
or Spanish (4) ; plane geometry (3) ; chemistry (with especial 
reference to materials of commerce) (4) ; history ^ (with 
especial reference to economic history and geography) (3) ; 
stenography (3) ; drawing and art study (2) ; physical train- 
ing (2) ; Total, 24 periods. 

Electives : German, French, or Spanish (4) ; bookkeeping 
and business forms (3) ; business arithmetic (i) ; commercial 
geography (i). 

Third Year. — Required : English (3) ; German, French, 
or Spanish (4) ; geometry and algebra ^ (3) ; physics (5) ; 
history^ (with especial reference to materials of commerce) 
(3) ; physical training (2) ; drawing and art study (i) ; 
Total, 21 periods. 

Electives : German, French, or Spanish (4) ; bookkeeping 
and business arithmetic (3) ; stenography and typewriting 
(3) ; drawing and art study (2) ; commercial geography (i). 

Fourth Year. — Required : Enghsh (3) ; German, French, 
or Spanish (4) ; economics and economic geography (4) ; 
history of the United States (with especial reference to indus- 
trial and constitutional aspects) (4) ; physical training (2) ; 
Total, 17 periods. 

Electives : A foreign language (4) ; advanced chemistry 
(4) ; economic biology (4) ; trigonometry and soHd geom- 
etry (4) ; elementary law and commercial law ^ (4) ; ad- 
vanced bookkeeping, business correspondence, and office 
practice (4) ; stenography and t3^ewriting (4) ; drawing 
and art study (4) ; modern industrialism (i). 

Fifth Year. — ■ Required : English (3) ; logic, inductive 
and deductive (3) ; physical training (2) ; Total, 8 periods. 

1 First half year, Beginnings of Nations to 1300 a.d. Second half year, Mod- 
em History to 1750. 

2 In the second half year, students may elect additional stenography and 
typewriting or bookkeeping in place of the second course in mathematics, or 
may give double time to mathematics by omitting either stenography or 
bookkeeping. 

^ First half year, English and colonial history, 1620 to 1750. Second half 
year, modern history (England and the Continent), 1750 to present time. 

* Students who do not elect law in the fourth year may receive instruction in 
commercial law in connection with advanced bookkeeping. 



670 Principles of Secondary Education 

Electives : A foreign language (4) ; advanced mathe- 
matics (4) ; advanced physics (4) ; industrial chemistry (4) ; 
economic geography (4) ; nineteenth century history, 
Europe and Orient, diplomatic history, United States and 
modern Europe (4) ; banking and finance, transportation 
and communication (4) ; administrative law and interna- 
tional law (4) ; accounting and auditing (4) ; business 
organization and management (4) ; drawing (4) ; advanced 
economics (3). 

It is too early to obtain rriore than a glimpse of the results 
of the new type of commercial secondary school. Undoubtedly 
it is an advance over the earlier. The instruction given is 
practical, but it is said that the cultural value of education 
is by no means lost. It is certain that there is a well-con- 
sidered and intelligent purpose to meet the real needs of a 
large body of students for whom the classical high school 
offers no attractions. Some high schools go so far even as 
to plan their courses to meet the needs not only of those who 
will remain until graduation, but also of those who will leave 
after a year or two. High schools of commerce that are 
working along these lines report that they have a large pro- 
portion of students who would not enter any other school, 
or would not stay for any length of time. The graduates find 
it easy to obtain positions in business life. In purely mechani- 
cal lines they are not so well prepared as those of the private 
commercial schools, but in capacity to acquire new knowledge 
and ability to use it they are far superior. Many of them, 
indeed, find the first-year work of excellent universit}'- schools 
of commerce almost elementary for them. This is merely 
because such schools are so few in number that the university 
schools have not been thoroughly correlated with them. They 
suffer from the general lack of unity in our education plan, 
which makes it difficult for the student to gain a coherent, 
consistent education from beginning to end, other than that 
which prepares for one of the well-recognized professions, 
such as law, medicine, teaching, and the like. 



Vocational Education 671 

A similar difficulty under which they labor is the dearth 
of well- trained teachers. These the university schools are 
beginning to supply. A beginning at least has been made, and 
it is not too much to expect that within the next decade the 
commercial secondary school will have become a very impor- 
tant part of our public school system, with a clearly defined 
relation to the other parts. More than that, it is probable 
that vocational schools of other types will have gained a firm 
footing, as they even now promise to do, under the leadership 
of the commercial high school. Many cities even now have 
vocational high schools of several distinct types. 

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTEREST IN AGRICUL- 
TURAL EDUCATION. — While the art of agriculture has 
been of popular interest and of practical necessity since the 
earliest periods, the academic study of the sciences underlying 
the art and of its practical processes are of very recent de- 
velopment. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- 
turies great popular interest in agriculture arose, partly as a 
result of the social and political changes of the times, partly 
as an accompaniment of the industrial and economic changes 
incident to the industrial revolution. In the United States 
one result was the formation of many agricultural societies. 
Such societies became centers of agitation for the promotion 
of agricultural schools. A few such schools were actually 
founded, one in Maine in 182 1 and one in Connecticut in 
1824. The development of the agricultural interest of the 
South, and the opening of the Middle West transferred the 
agricultural interests to those sections. This was followed, 
especially in the Middle West, by a similar development of ag- 
ricultural societies and agitation for the formation of agricul- 
tural colleges. Two such, Pennsylvania and Michigan, were 
founded before the Civil War. This movement coalescing 



672 Principles of Secondary Education 

with the one for industrial education resulted in the Land 
Grant Colleges established by the first Morrill Act of 1862. 

The distraction of interest and the unsettling of all such 
efforts consequent upon the Civil War, together with the great 
industrial revival following the war, and the opening up of 
the almost unlimited resources of the great West again with- 
drew most interest from the problems of agricultural educa- 
tion. In the last decade of the nineteenth century and the 
early years of the twentieth century other conditions are forc- 
ing this question again to the front and are making of it an 
educational problem of national, even of world-wide importance. 
Among such conditions are the expansion of the public domain, 
the great rise in prices, especially of agricultural products, the 
decrease or cessation of the export surplus in the agricultural 
crops of the United States, the fertility exhaustion of farm 
lands, the relative decrease in agricultural population, and the 
general recognition that the existing institutions of agricul- 
tural education were not meeting the problem. On the other 
hand, advancement in the field of applied science has dem- 
onstrated vast possibilities in the application of science to 
the problems of agriculture. All of these have done much to 
bring the question of agricultural education again into great 
prominence. 

AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS.— 
The agricultural colleges have done much, during the past forty 
years, to prepare the way for an extension of agricultural in- 
struction and to stimulate an interest in the subject. The very 
important work which they have done in laying a foundation 
of sound agricultural knowledge was a necessary prerequisite 
to any general movement for the extension downward of agri- 
cultural instruction. Knowledge had to be accumulated, ex- 
tended, and popularized before agricultural instruction below 
the colleges could become possible. The recent activity of the 
United States Department of Agriculture in stimulating and 
encouraging the many efforts looking toward the extension 



Vocational Education 673 

of agricultural knowledge and agricultural instruction have 
been of great service. The movement has also been greatly 
aided by the knowledge, which has come to us within recent 
years, of what European states and nations have been and 
are doing in agricultural instruction, and the success which 
has attended their efforts. The work of France in particular 
has been an inspiration to us. Another influence which has 
greatly aided the movement has been the growing realization 
that this nation must, ultimately, be a great agricultural 
nation, and that our present wasteful and unintelligent 
methods of agriculture will not do for the future. To find a 
means of disseminating proper ideas as to how best to con- 
serve and to improve our great national resource has been a 
strong motive underlying the movement. 

Certain movements within the schools themselves have 
fitted in with and helped to prepare the way for the develop- 
ment of agricultural instruction. The general introduction of 
nature study into our schools, which came with the populari- 
zation of science, has been of very material value in preparing 
the way and in developing teachers capable of taking up the 
agricultural work. The still more recent school garden move- 
ment, and the general demand for more practical instruction 
in the public schools, both elementary and secondary, have 
also contributed their share in preparing the way for the 
somewhat general introduction of agricultural instruction. 
As the movement has grown in importance and definiteness, 
the far-reaching results, both economic and educational, 
have come more clearly into view, and the movement in turn 
has begun materially to change our conceptions of the methods 
of procedure, purposes, and needs of the rural school and of 
the high school in particular, and bids fair to modify for good 
our whole educational work. 

Agricultural High Schools. — Schools of secondary grade 
for theoretical and practical training in agriculture exist in 
France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Japan. The ecoles 



674 Principles of Secondary Education 

pratiques of France, first established in 1875, of which there 
are now about 50 in existence, are in reaUty secondary 
schools for the training in agriculture of the sons of peasant 
proprietors or small farmers, and with a two-year course 
of instruction. In Germany many agricultural schools have 
been established, beginning at the close of the Realschulen 
course, or at the end of unter-sekunda of the Gymnasia or Real- 
gymnasia, in which natural sciences and agriculture take the 
place of the languages and mathematics of the gymnasia! 
course. In Japan any city, town, or village may establish a 
secondary school, if the local finances will permit of so doing 
without detriment to the elementary schools of the place. 
By 1904 there were 57 such schools in Japan, and the number 
is increasing every year. 

It was thirty years after the establishment of agricultural 
colleges in this country before the first successful agricultural 
high school was established. This one, estabhshed in 1888, 
was in connection with the University of Minnesota, and its 
success was pronounced from the first. By 1898, however, 
the number of agricultural high schools had only increased 
to 10, and the teaching of agriculture in the normal schools 
and the elementary schools of the country had only begun. 
Since then the development of secondary instruction in agri- 
culture has been much more rapid, though the development 
has not been so fast as in the case of agricultural instruction 
in the elementary schools. 

To provide instruction in agriculture in the high schools is 
a very much easier problem than to provide such instruction 
for elementary schools. The age and mental capacity of the 
pupils, the nature of the school, and the character of its work 
and equipment, all tend toward a specialization in subject 
matter, and specialized agricultural subjects are much better 
organized and are easier to teach than the more generalized 
work of the elementary school. The equipment needed, on 
the other hand, is more extensive, few good textbooks of 



Vocational Education 675 

secondary grade have as yet been provided, just what is to 
be taught has not as yet been definitely decided upon and 
put into practice, and the number of properly equipped 
teachers is relatively small, and probably will continue to be 
much less than the demand for some time to come. 

Statistics collected in May, 1909, showed that the number 
of agricultural high schools, or colleges offering definite second- 
ary agricultural courses, had increased to 60 ; that 346 public 
high schools were teaching agriculture as a part of the high 
school course ; that 119 state and county normal schools and 
16 agricultural colleges were training teachers to teach agri- 
culture in the schools; that a number of private secondary 
schools were aiding in the work; and that 16 institutions 
offered correspondence or reading courses of secondary grade. 
In all about 500 institutions were giving secondary instruc- 
tion in agriculture in May, 1909, and the number has materially 
increased since then. Some instruction in agriculture is 
now being added to secondary school courses so fast and in so 
many parts of the country that it is difficult to know in how 
many schools and where it is given. 

The schools giving secondary work in agriculture may be 
classified as follows : 

{a) Secondary schools of agriculture in connection with 
the colleges of agriculture. The Minnesota school is of this 
type, and similar schools of agriculture, or two-year or three- 
year practical courses, are now maintained in connection 
with the colleges of agriculture in Alabama, Arkansas, Cali- 
fornia, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, 
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mis- 
sissippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, 
New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, 
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Porto Rico, Rhode Island, South 
Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, 
Wisconsin, and Wyoming. In addition, a number of the 
agricultural colleges are giving instruction which is secondary 



676 Principles of Secondary Education 

in nature, though it may not be recognized as such. The 16 
land grant colleges for the colored race in the Southern states 
are in large part secondary schools, their subcollege courses 
representing at least two thirds of their work. These in- 
stitutions have chosen to produce a large body of practical 
negro farmers for the South rather than to produce a few 
highly trained negro experts. 

(&) Agricultural high schools located in large districts, 
such as those in Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, and Minnesota. 
Alabama was the first state to organize such schools, and now 
has 9, one located in each congressional district. Each 
school has a branch experimental station connected with it; 
it is provided with land for experimental and instructional 
purposes ; has an equipment of buildings, animals, and ma- 
chinery; and receives a state appropriation of $4500 a year 
for maintenance. Georgia has 11 such schools, similarly 
located. Land, buildings, and equipment were furnished 
almost entirely by local contributions, and out of the in- 
come from fees and taxes the state grants about $7500 a year 
to each school for maintenance. Each school has not less than 
200 acres of land. The schools in each state give a four- 
year course. Other states having somewhat similar schools 
are California and Minnesota, where one state school is pro- 
vided ; New York, with three such schools ; Oklahoma, with 
one such school provided for each of the five judicial dis- 
tricts of the state ; and Virginia, where it is proposed to es- 
tablish one in each of the ten congressional districts of the 
state. In Massachusetts a comprehensive scheme of special- 
ized agricultural high schools was planned by the State In- 
dustrial Commission, the plan being to locate ten schools at 
different places in the state, and -to divide the state into ten 
large agricultural districts. Under the supervision of the Board 
of Education, which succeeded to the work of the Industrial 
Commission, about a dozen schools have been established. 
Some of these have the county as a basis, some the town. 



Vocational Education 677 

The district plan is perhaps the best arrangement for such 
schools, as the state can then be divided into natural agricul- 
tural districts, and a school located in each. 

(c) County agricultural high schools, as in Michigan and 
Wisconsin. The first of these was established in Wisconsin 
in 1902, and four are now in existence. These schools are 
built and equipped at the expense of the counties where they 
are located, but the state makes a grant of $4000 a year for 
each school. The Marathon County school at Wausau, and 
the Dunn County school at Menominee were opened in 1902, 
and similar schools have since been opened at Marinette and 
Winneconne. The course of study in each is two years in 
length, and contains much practical and little academic work. 
There is a county agricultural high school also at Menominee, 
Michigan; and Mississippi has recently provided for state 
aid of $1000 a year to county agricultural high schools, one 
to be located in each county in the state. County agricul- 
tural high schools are also to be found in Maryland. Expe- 
rience so far seems to indicate that the county is too small a 
unit for the proper equipment and maintenance of a good 
agricultural high school. 

id) State and county normal schools. Over 100 normal 
schools in the United States were giving instruction in agri- 
culture in 1909. In some schools a regular course is given 
by a trained agricultural teacher, while in others the work is 
done as a part of the science work. In all such schools the 
aim of the work is to prepare teachers of the subject for work 
in the elementary schools. 

{e) Regular high schools, offering instruction in agriculture 
as a part of their course of instruction. In such schools no 
uniform plan is followed. In some the work consists of but 
one or two courses ; in others a number of elective agricultural 
studies are offered ; while in still others a regular agricultural 
course is given parallel with the other courses of the school. 
In a few schools the work is somewhat limited and specialized 



678 Principles of Secondary Education 

along such lines as horticulture or floriculture. Something 
like 400 schools were offering such instruction at the close of 
the school year in 1909, and the number has increased since 
then. In Missouri alone over 200 high schools reported some 
instruction in agriculture. In some places, and even through- 
out some states, the existing high schools are being reorganized 
so as to make them in large part agricultural high schools. Cir- 
cular No. gi, Office of Experiment Stations, U. S. Department 
of Agriculture, gives detailed courses of instruction in horti- 
culture and agriculture, as these have been adopted by the 
Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment 
Stations. 

(/) Private schools, or semi-private schools. In this class 
should be placed the National Farm School, at Doylestown, 
Pennsylvania, established in 1896 to provide instruction and 
practical farm work for about 40 boys ; the agricultural de- 
partment of the Mount Hermon School, near Northfield, 
Massachusetts, where instruction was begun in 1903 ; the 
Smith Agricultural School and Northampton School of Tech- 
nology, at Northampton, Massachusetts, opened in 1908 ; the 
Winona Agricultural and Technical Institute at Winona Lake, 
Indiana, established in 1902; Tuskegee in Alabama; and a 
number of privately endowed colleges, which afford secondary 
instruction in agriculture as a part of their work, and nearly all 
of which are located in the upper Mississippi valley. The 
schools at Doylestown, Northampton, and Tuskegee also .re- 
ceive some state aid. At Groton, Massachusetts, a school of 
horticulture and landscape gardening for women has been 
opened, and a course in horticulture is now given at Wellesley 
College. 

THE PRESENT PROBLEM. — What is the best way to 
develop secondary instruction in agriculture is as yet a some- 
what unsettled question. Whether it is better to aid the 
present school system to evolve agricultural instruction out 
of the present work, and thus make agricultural instruction 



Vocational Education 679 

an integral part of the regular school system ; or whether 
special and independent schools for the teaching of agriculture 
and domestic subjects should be established, has not as yet 
been decided. The latter method at present seems to meet 
with greater favor from practical men, but many educators 
favor the former plan, believing that the inclusion of agricul- 
tural instruction in the regular work of the secondary schools, 
rather than its separation as a special kind of education for 
which special and independent schools need to be established, 
is best for us as a nation. It was this conception of the unity 
of all education which led to the opposition, from educational 
workers, to the congressional proposal of 1908 to grant aid 
from the national treasury toward the establishment of sepa- 
rate secondary schools of agriculture in the different states. 
It is probable that both types of schools will be needed, and 
will exist side by side, the larger and more specialized schools 
being organized for agricultural districts, as was proposed for 
Massachusetts, and some agricultural instruction being intro- 
duced into most of the town and rural high schools. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1 . What is the attitude of the modern trade union towards industrial 
education ? 

2. What is the attitude of the modern employer or of organizations 
of employees towards industrial education ? 

3. What are the advantages and the disadvantages of the evening 
school as an instrument of industrial education as seen in concrete 
cases ? 

4. What are the merits and the difficulties in the actual details of 
arrangement of the part-time cooperative plan as seen in American 
attempts ? In German ? 

5. What are the social and economic conditions which render desirable 
the public support of commercial education ? 

6. What place has commercial education in public high schools ? 
In the high school of the small city or town ? 

7. Is a part-time cooperative plan possible or desirable in the com- 
mercial field as it is in the industrial ? 



68o Principles of Secondary Education 

8. What are the merits and advantages of the German system of 
commercial education over our own? Of that of any other European 
system over our own ? 

9. What is the attitude of the business or commercial classes towards 
commercial education? How can cooperation between them and the 
school be brought about ? 

10. What differences exist in the social and industrial conditions at 
the time of the manual training movement of the eighties and nineties 
and similar conditions producing the industrial and trade education 
demands of the present ? 

1 1 . What differences or similarities are found in a comparison of Amer- 
ican conditions with those of any one European country where in- 
dustrial education has been developed ? 

12. What can we learn direct from the industrial or trade schools 
of Germany regarding curriculum, method, or organization ? Of France ? 
Of any other European country? 

13. What are the advantages or disadvantages of the old appren- 
ticeship system of industrial training over the present ? 

14. Trace out the actual workings of the apprenticeship system of 
industrial education in any one country or in any one industry. 

15. In any one industry or in any one community what are the dijSGi- 
culties existing at the present time in operating a system of industrial 
education ? 

16. What facts can be adduced to support the reasons given in the 
text for the decline of interest in agricultural education following the Civil 
War? 

17. What facts can be adduced to support the reasons given in the 
text for the recent growth of interest in agricultural education ? 

18. What should be the relation between the agricultural colleges and 
the agricultural high schools ? , 

19. What should be the relation between the agricultural colleges 
and the farming population? What between the agricultural high 
schools and the farming population ? 

20. What concrete problems of agriculture can be studied in a high 
school course in agriculture ? 

21. What are the merits and demerits of each type of the agricultural 
high school given in the text ? 

22. What can we learn from the work of the secondary agricultural 
schools of Germany applicable to conditions in the United States? 
From France ? From other European countries ? 

23. What differences in curricula should be made between the various 
types of agricultural secondary schools mentioned in the text ? What 
in method ? 



Vocational Education 68 1 

REFERENCES 

Industrial Education 

A comprehensive bibliography of works on Industrial Education is 
given in the Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the U. S. Commissioner of 
Labor, pp. 521-539. In the following list only the most important and 
most accessible titles are given. 

Carlton, F. T. Education and Industrial Evolution. New York, 1908. 
Creasey, C. H. Technical Education in Evening Schools. London, 1905. 
Draper, A. S. Our Children, our Schools, and our Industries. Annual 

Report, New York State Education Department. Albany, 1908. 
DuTTON, S. T., and Snedden, D. S. Administration of Public Education 

in the United States. New York, 1908. 
Germer, B., editor. Die Forthildungs- und Fachschulen in den grosseren 

Orten Deutschlands. Leipzig, 1904. 
Hanus, p. H. Beginnings in Industrial Education. Boston, 1908. 
Howard, E. D. The Cause and Extent of the Recent Industrial Progress 

of Germany. Boston, 1907. 
K^RSCHENSTEiNER, Georg. Organisation und Lehrpldne der obligato- 

rischen Each- und Fortbildungschulen fur Knaben in Munchen. Mu- 
nich, 1910. 
Jahresbericht der manulichen Fortbildungs- und Gewerbeschulen Miin- 

chens. Annual since 1907. Munich. 
Staatsbiirgerliche Erziehung der deutschen Jugend. Erfurt, 1909. 
Ktmmins, C. W. Trade Schools in England. Elem. Sch. Teacher. Vol. 

X, pp. 209-219. 
Lautz, Th. Fortbildungs- und Fachschulen fiir Mddchen. Wiesbaden, 

1902. 
Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, 

Report. Boston, 1906. 
Second Annual Report. Boston, 1908. 
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. Bulletins, 

New York. 
New York State Department of Labor. 26th Annual Report of the Bureau 

of Labor Statistics, Part I. Industral Training. Albany, 1909. 
Pacquier, J. B. L'Enseignement professional en France; son Histoire; 

ses differ entes Formes; ses Result ats. Paris, 1908. 
Person, H. S. Industrial Ediication. Boston, 1907. 
Place of Industries in Public Education. Proceedings, N. E. A. 1910. 
Sadler, M. E. Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere. Man- 
chester, 1908. 



682 Principles of Secondary Education 

Technical Education in France. U Enseignement technique en France. 
Etude publiee a P Occasion de V Exposition de igoo. Paris, 1900. 

U. S. Bureau of Labor. Conditions of Entrance to the Principal Trades. 
Bulletin, No. 67, 1906. Washington. 

U. S. Commissioner of Labor. Industrial Education. Twenty-fifth An- 
nual Report. Washington, 1910. 

U. S. Commissioner of Labor. Trade and Technical Education. Seven- 
teenth Annual Report. Washington, 1902. 

U. S. Department of Commerce and Labor. Industrial Education in 
Germany. SpecialConsularReports,Yo\.'KXXlll. Washington, 1905. 

Ware, Fabian. Educational Foundations of Trade and Industry. New 
York, 1901. 

Wright, C. D. The Apprenticeship System in its Relation to Indus- 
trial Education. U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin, No. 6. 
Washington, 1908. 

Manual Training 

Baldwin, W. A. Industrial Social Education. Springfield, Massa- 
chusetts, 1903. 
Clarke, I. E. Education in Fine and Industrial Art in the United States. 

U. S. Bureau of Education. 4 vols. Washington, 1885-1898. 
Council of Supervisors of the Manual Arts Year Books. 1903-1909. 
Dewey, John. The School and Society. Chicago, 1899. 
Dopp, Katharine. The Place of Industries in Elementary Education. 

Chicago, 1903. 
Educational Monographs. New York College for the Training of Teachers. 

New York, 1 888-1 890. 
GoETZE, Waldemar. Hand and Eye Training. London, 1894. 
Ham, C. H. Manual Training. New York, 1886. 
Ireland, Reports and Minutes of Evidence of the Commission on Manual 

and Practical Instruction in Primary Schools under the Board of 

Education in. 7 vols. London, 1897. 
Manual Training Magazine. Peoria, 1899- 
N. E. A. Various Papers. Proceedings, 1884- 

Report of Committees on Place of Industries in Public Education, 19 10. 
Salomon, Otto. Theory of Educational Sloyd. Boston, 1896. 
ScHMiTT, E. La Pedagogic du Travail Manuel. Paris, 1895. 
Teachers College Record. The Elementary School Curriculum. New 

York, 1908. 
U. S. Bureau of Education. Reports. Washington, 1887- 
WooDWARD, C. M. The Manual Training School. Boston, 1887. 
Educational Value of Manual Training. Boston, 1890. 
Manual Training in Education. New York, 1891. 



Vocational Education 683 

Commercial Education 

Barber, E. M. A Contribution to the History of Commercial Education. 
Brooklyn, 1903. 

Bulletins of University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, New York 
University, University of Wisconsin, University of Chicago, University 
of California, Harvard University, University of Iowa, and others. 

Hartog, p. J. Commercial Education in the United States. Board of 
Education, Special Reports on Educational Subjects, Vol. XL Lon- 
don, 1902. 

Haskins, Charles Waldo. Business Education and Accountancy. 
New York and London, 1904. 

Herrick, Cheesman Abiah. Meaning and Practice of Commercial 
Education. New York and London, 1904. 

Hooper, F. and Graham, J. Commercial Education at Home and Abroad. 
New York and London, 1901. 

James, Edmund Janes. Commercial Education. Albany, N. Y., 1900. 
Education of Business Men. New York, 1893. 

London Chamber of Commerce. Conference on Commercial Education. 
London, 1898. 

London School of Economics and Political Science. Brief Report of the 
Work of the School since iSg^. London, 1899. 

Michigan, Political Science Association. Higher Commercial Education. 
Ann Arbor, Mich., 1903. 

Proceedings and Addresses of the Department of Business Education in 
the National Education Association, 1897-1909. 

Reports of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1885-1909. 

Sadler, Michael E. Higher Commercial Education in Antwerp, Leip- 
zig, Paris, and Havre. Board of Education, Special Reports, Vol. 
III. London, 1898. 
Recent Developments in Higher Commercial Education in Germany. 
Board of Education, Special Reports, Vol. IX. London, 1902. 

Vanderlip, Frank Arthur. Addresses on Commercial and Technical 
Education. New York, 1905. 

Ware, Fabian. Educational Foundation of Trade and Industry. New 
York, 1 90 1. 

Whitfield, E. E. Commercial Education in Theory and Practice. Lon- 
don, 1 901. 

Agricultural Education 

Bailey, L. H. On the Training of Persons to teach Agriculture in the 
Public Schools. Bull. No. I, 1908, U. S. Bur. Educ, pp. 53, 2 pp. 
bibliography on agricultural education. Washington, 1908. 



684 Principles of Secondary Education 

Bailey, L. H. The Training oj Farmers, The Century Co., 1909. 
Bailey, L.H. Education by Means of Agriculture. Cyclopedia oj Ameri- 
can Agriculture. Vol. IV, ch. viii, 1909. Historical and descriptive. 
Betts, G. H. New Ideals in Rural Schools. Boston, 1911. 
Carney, Mabel. Country Life and the Country School. Chicago, 191 2. 
Cubberley, E. p. Rural Life and Education. Boston, 1907. 
Ellis, A. Caswell. The Teaching of Agriculture in the Public Schools. 

Univ. of Texas, Bull. No. 85, 56 pp. Austin, 1906. 
Eggleston, J. D., and Bruere, R. W. The Work of the Rural School. 

New York, 1913. 
FiSKE, G. W. The Challenge of the Country. New York, 191 2. 
FoGHT, H. W. The American Rural School. New York, 1910. 
Jewell, J. R. Agricultural Education. Bull. No. 2, 1907, U. S. Bur, 

Educ, 140 pp. Bibliography of 123 titles. Washington, 1907. 
Hart, J. K. Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities. 

New York, 1913. 
Kern, A. J. Among Country Schools. Boston, 1906. 
N. E. A. Report of the Committee on Industrial Education for Rural Com- 
munities, 1905. 97 pp. Supplementary Report of 45 pp. in 1907. 
Published separately, and also inProc. N. E. A. for 1905 and 1907. 
Seerley, H. W. The Country School. . New York, 1913. 
U. S. Bureau of Educ. Annual Reports. 

The Teaching of Agriculture in the Schools of France and Belgixun ; 

in Rept. for 1905, Vol. I, pp. 87-96. 
Agricultural High Schools ; in Rept. for 1909, Vol. I, pp. 146-150. 
U. S. Dept. of Agriculture ; Office of Experimental Station, Circulars : 
No. 49, True, A. C. Secondary Courses in Agriculture. 10 pp. 1902. 
No. 60, True, A. C. The Teaching of Agriculture in the Rural Common 

Schools. 20 pp. 1904. 
No. 69, True, A. C. A Four Years^ College Course in Agriculture. 

36 pp. 1906. 
No. 73, True, A. C. Country Life Education. 13 pp. 1907. 
No. 77, True, A. C. A Secondary Course in Agronomy. 44 pp. 1908. 
No. 83, True, A. C, and Crosby, D. J. The American System of 

Agricultural Education. 27 pp. 111. 1909. 
No. 84, Hays, W. M. Education for Country Life. 40 pp. 1909. 
No. 90, Abbey, M. J. Normal School Instruction in Agriculture. 31pp. 

1909. 
No. 91, True, A. C. Secondary Education in Agriculture in the United 
States. II pp. 1909. Outline courses of study in Horticulture 
and in Agriculture. 
U. S. Dept. of Agriculture ; Office of Experimental Stations, Bulletins : 
No. 186, Crosby, D. J. Exercises in Elementary Agriculture. 48 pp. 1907. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
HYGIENE AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

HYGIENE. — Hygiene (from v<yieLa, hygiene, health) is 
usually defined as the science that treats of the prevention of 
disease and the preservation of health. It is especially an 
appHed science, and, in a certain sense, an art. It aims, in 
the words of a modern writer, " to make growth more perfect, 
life more vigorous, decay less rapid, death more remote." The 
positive note in this definition of aims is characteristic of recent 
hygiene. It is no longer satisfied with the mere attempt to 
prevent disease, but it emphasizes especially the need of nor- 
mal healthful development and the acquisition of vigorous 
habits of health that shall be prophylactic against disease. 

PERSONAL HYGIENE. — Personal hygiene consists of 
two important parts, somatic hygiene and mental hygiene. 
On account of the great individual differences in strength, 
endurance, ability to work and to resist disease, the problem 
in both these fields must be an individual one. Mental 
hygiene is quite as important for the teacher and pupil as 
somatic hygiene, and the teachings of mental hygiene and the 
hygiene of instruction are so important for sound education 
that for pedagogical as well as hygienic reasons the school 
cannot ignore them. 

The subject has also important social aspects. In its wider 
sense personal hygiene is the very basis of disease prevention 
and health preservation. All plans for community or national 
freedom from disease must rest upon and depend upon the 
care with which the individual members of society settle 
their problems in personal hygiene. If every member of any 

68s 



686 Principles of Secondary Education 

given social unit- would persistently apply his rights of fran- 
chise in favor of more stringent and effective laws of hygiene 
and sanitation, the problems of personal hygiene would be 
far easier. The difficulties of personal health control are 
largely difficulties which are of a community origin. The 
transgressions of one member of a community are visited 
upon the lives of his innocent fellow citizens. Equity in 
matters of this kind is secured only through law backed by 
strong popular sentiment. Then, if every member of any 
given social unit is protected from hygienic or sanitary injury 
inflicted by his fellow citizens, he may organize his policy of 
personal health control with every prospect of success. Under 
such circumstances it would be possible to develop a com- 
munity in which each member practiced intelligent habits of 
bodily nourishment, supervising the food he would eat, the 
food he would drink, and the food he would breathe ; intelli- 
gent habits of excretion; intelligent habits of exercise; in- 
telligent habits of rest; and intelligent habits of cleanliness. 
Men of such habits are men of health, men of strength, men 
of efficiency. A community or a nation with such habits 
would have solved the problem of prevention of disease and 
have conserved its resources in terms of human Hfe, human 
happiness, and human prosperity, with all that such con- 
servation means economically, socially, and politically. 

Another very important relationship of personal hygiene is 
its relationship to intellectual efficiency. The uncorrected, in- 
capacitating, remediable physical defects of school children ; 
the time lost through absences due to preventable disease ; the 
paralyses and other organic degenerations following the pre- 
ventable diseases and leaving chronic incurable conditions 
obstructive of further mental development and destructive of 
that already attained ; the disturbed home conditions producing 
nervous strain, poverty, undernourishment, and lowered resist- 
ance, following parental disease or death — all are samples of 
serious avoidable and preventable conditions affecting the intel- 



Hygiene and Physical Education 687 

lectual activities of school children. If the personal hygiene of 
school children and the personal hygiene of the communities in 
which they live were what they ideally ought to be and what 
they could be, these destructive conditions could not exist. 

Furthermore, the aggressively healthy child is the most 
efj&cient child academically as well as physically considered. 
The teacher working with sound healthy minds will secure 
larger educational results than under less normal conditions. 
This fact is effectively proved by the experiences of our 
open-air schools ; the introduction of school lunches ; the 
progress of pupils who have been relieved of incapacitating 
physical defects ; and the studies of men who have compared 
schools and school children representing various types of 
physiological health. 

The Scope of Personal Hygiene. — In its narrower sense, 
personal hygiene has been construed as including only those 
physiological and anatomical and very intimate personal 
relationships and habits which are obviously personal. Such 
a conception would bring the following topics under the head- 
ing of " Personal Hygiene " : Care of the clothing, skin, scalp, 
nails, eyes, ears, nose, teeth, mouth, throat, heart, lungs, 
alimentary canal, genito-urinary organs, bones, joints, brain- 
and nervous system, food, water, ventilation, tea, coffee, 
alcohol, and tobacco. In some texts " first aid to the in- 
jured " is included. 

A wider construction of the scope of personal hygiene in- 
cludes everything that bears upon the health of the human 
body. Such a scope would include the various subtopics 
connected directly and indirectly with the following subjects : 
Bodily nourishment, including food, water, and air ; the ex- 
cretions ; exercise ; rest ; the influence of abnormal con- 
ditions on health {e.g. defective vision, bad teeth, adenoids,- 
constipation) ; the influence of certain habits on health {e.g. 
rapid eating, bad habits of vision, smoking, drug habits, 
sexual habits, etc.) ; the causes of disease ; the carriers of 



688 Principles of Secondary Education 

disease ; our defenses against disease ; and the nature of our 
common diseases. 

Personal hygiene considered from this point of view would 
be rational and comprehensive. Its relationship to sex 
hygiene, domestic hygiene, school hygiene, medical inspec- 
tion, school nursing, community hygiene, industrial hygiene, 
military, naval, and national hygiene is obvious. These 
special divisions of hygiene are important because they repre- 
sent personal hygiene under special conditions. The hygiene 
of all society and of all the enterprises of society depends 
upon the hygiene of the individual. On the other hand, the 
individual is more than powerless unless society as a whole 
stands for such regulations and such customs as will make 
possible, easy, and practical the application of the laws of 
health. 

TEACHING OF HYGIENE. — The importance of the 
teaching of hygiene can hardly be overestimated. Health 
represents a universal human interest. Its importance can 
be estimated only in terms of human value. Efficiency, to 
adopt the modern slogan, is impossible without it. Both 
directly as contributing to personal well-being and indirectly 
as contributing to the welfare of others, health is a prime con- 
dition of human happiness and even of morality. Such 
truths, which are so commonplace as to be merely platitudes, 
should not only be taught to the young, but should be made 
vital by training. Hence the aim of education from the point 
of view of hygiene is the development of habits of healthful 
activity both physical and mental. This training in habits 
of health should be supplemented by suitable instruction at 
different stages. To insure such training and such instruc- 
tion, proper training and an adequate course in hygiene are 
imperative in the preparation of all teachers. This is the con- 
sensus of opinion of hygienists, and a resolution to emphasize 
this need was passed by the Second International Congress 
of School Hygiene at London, 1907. 



Hygiene and Physical Education 689 

Instruction in Hygiene in the Schools. — The extent to 
which instruction in the principles and practice of hygiene 
has been introduced into the schools of the United States is 
indicated by the recent investigations of the American School 
Hygiene Association. Meylan reported on 116 colleges, of 
which 75 per cent were giving instruction in hygiene. Twenty- 
six per cent of the colleges reporting on the details of their 
work were giving instruction in personal hygiene only; 24 
per cent were giving instruction in general hygiene ; others 
reported in smaller percentages that instruction was being 
given in emergencies, community hygiene, industrial hygiene, 
and mental hygiene. Seventy-nine per cent of these colleges 
reported that students were required to undergo a medical 
examination before taking up their work. Seventy-nine per 
cent reported [regular sanitary inspections of school build- 
ings and dormitories; 77 per cent inspected kitchens; 83 
per cent inspected the water supply and grounds. Twenty 
per cent of these colleges accepted hygiene as a credit for 
admission. 

Gulick reported on 90 public normal schools and on 2392 
public high schools. Seventy-four per cent of the normal 
schools and 16 per cent of the high schools were giving instruc- 
tion in hygiene. At the last Congress of the American 
Hygiene Association, GuUck reported on 758 cities having 
graded public school systems. He found that 45 per cent of 
those cities " have regular organized systems of medical in- 
spection in their schools " and " about one quarter of the 
cities have systems under the Board of Health " and three 
quarters are under the Board of Education. " Only a Httle 
more than one half of them undertake physical examinations." 
Seventy-six of those cities were employing school nurses, and 
forty-eight, school dentists. Twenty-five per cent of those 
cities were using individual drinking cups, and 75 per cent had 
sanitary drinking fountains. In some of the cities both 
systems were in use. " Over one half of these schools use 



690 Principles of Secondary Education 

moist cloths for dusting ; in nearly all of them dust-absorbing 
compounds are used in sweeping ; and in nearly a tenth of 
them the schools are supplied with vacuum cleaners." Most 
of these cities reported that their schoolroom floors were 
washed once in a month or once in three months, " although 
it is by no means rare to find cities in which they are washed 
once in five months or never washed at all." Adjustable 
desks are reported in about one half of the cities heard from. 
" Ninety-five per cent of the cities teach their children the 
effects of alcohol and tobacco ; 61 per cent have special 
courses on the prevention and cure of tuberculosis, and 48 
per cent give lessons in first aid." It is very evident from 
these reports that a large number of the larger cities in the 
United States have made provision for instruction in the prin- 
ciples of hygiene and have organized systems of medical and 
hygienic supervision which must be more or less effective in 
establishing the practice of hygiene. 

Scope of a Course in Hygiene. — • Authorities differ as to 
the proper content of a course in the principles of hygiene. 
The older texts combined a study of anatomy and physiology 
with a study of the influences that act injuriously upon the 
organs and therefore upon their physiological activities. 
Some of the later texts minimize the amount of anatomy and 
physiology presented and emphasize the presentation of more 
purely hygienic material. 

Leaving out of consideration the essential value of an in- 
telligent knowledge of the main facts of human anatomy and 
physiology, there remain obviously very strong reasons why 
an intelligent knowledge of hygiene is impossible without 
an equally intelligent knowledge of anatomy and physiology. 
The teacher must be well informed in these fundamentals, 
for he cannot afford to be ignorant of the basis of his subject. 
The pupil must necessarily be content to take many things 
for granted, but his hygienic education will be more valuable 
in the proportion in which it is based on a real knowledge of 



Hygiene and Physical Education 691 

its scientific basis. The amount of time necessary to give 
an adequate knowledge of physiology and anatomy will de- 
pend on whether or not physiology is taught elsewhere in 
the curriculum as well as on the age of the pupil and on the 
phase of hygiene under consideration. 

There are different points of view also concerning the con- 
tent of elementary, intermediate, and advanced courses in 
their relation to each other. A common plan is to consider 
the same subject matter year after year, going more deeply 
into the details each time. The opposite plan is to take up 
new phases of hygiene each term, utilizing at the same time 
the facts already presented.. Another variation in the con- 
ception of the proper content of a course in hygiene is that 
which includes procedures calculated to develop the practice 
of hygiene. Habit is most important. We must have the 
knowledge, but the knowledge is of little use if it is not ap- 
plied in the daily habits of the individual. The procedures 
that tend to develop habits of hygiene are physical exercise 
(games, sports, plays), swimming, bathing, toothbrush drills, 
hygienic and -medical inspection with the correction of bad 
habits of hygiene, and of remediable incapacitating physical 
defects, routine exclusions for contagious cases and cases 
exposed to contagious disease. This conception combines 
instruction in the principles of hygiene with instruction in 
the practices of hygiene. It unites classroom instruction 
with the applications of hygiene in the various departments 
and divisions of the school. 

It is most desirable from the standpoint of educational 
method and effective results to combine the essentials of 
related anatomy and physiology with a carefully graded se- 
quence of hygienic subjects ; at the same time insisting on 
the practice of health habits and procedures from those of 
simple cleanhness and exercise up to those of individual rehef 
from the handicap of physical defect and those of community 
protection against communicable disease. 



692 Principles of Secondary Education 

Methods of Instruction in Hygiene. — There is the same 
necessity for sound educational methods in presenting the 
subject of hygiene to school children or college students as 
there is in the presentation of any other subject taught them. 
The object of this instruction in hygiene is the establishment 
of right habits of living based upon a rational knowledge of 
the reasons why those habits are right. The subject is es- 
sentially scientific in its foundations and logical in its applica- 
tion. All the arguments that have been advanced in support 
of better educational methods of teaching scientific subjects 
and all the arguments that have been advanced in support of 
educational methods that will best develop the power of 
reasoning are arguments in favor of the employment of the 
best educational methods in the teaching of hygiene. The 
subjects which are basal to hygiene, such as physiology, anat- 
omy, and bacteriology, should be taught by the methods that 
have been found most effective for those subjects. The need 
for dissections, models, illustrations, diagrams, charts, speci- 
mens gross and histologic, and clay molding in anatomy ; of 
illustrations, references, laboratory experiments, and so on in 
physiology; of cultures, experiments, and specimens in bac- 
teriology is as urgent when these subjects are a portion of a 
* course in hygiene as when they are independent. 

The Teaching of Hygiene in the High School. — The 
curricula of our schools are already overcrowded. The addi- 
tion of hygiene as a complete subject means a large addi- 
tion. For these reasons there are very few schools in which 
hygiene is presented in anything like its complete form. The 
commonest school method is that which utilizes a selected 
textbook from which the pupils prepare their recitations. 
Charts, diagrams, illustrations, and practical questions ac- 
company the recitations. Where departments of biology 
exist, or where physiology or bacteriology is taught, these 
subjects are often made to cover hygiene or various parts of 
it. Many of our high schools and colleges are placing hygiene 



Hygiene and Physical Education 693 

in the Department of Physical Education, where it has a 
peculiar appropriateness. A good deal of hygiene is taught 
by the medical inspectors and nurses in some of those schools 
that have an efficient system of medical inspection. 

There should be careful correlation between the instruction 
in the principles of hygiene on the one hand and on the other 
hand the procedures and conditions of applied hygiene and 
sanitation as they exist in the school system, its buildings, 
grounds, and material equipment. The educational influences 
from these various sources should be harmonious . There should 
be no inconsistencies between general scientific hygienic prin- 
ciple and local hygienic practice. The subject matter in any 
given course in hygiene should include particularly the hygienic 
features connected with the health problems which occur in 
the daily lives of the individuals concerned. Such a course 
would logically include the following topics : Food ; its 
physiological importance and requirements ; its source ; its 
contaminations ; its preparation ; its ingestion ; the influences 
of emotional states on its digestion; its assimilation and its 
excretion. Water; its physiological importance; its con- 
tamination. Air ; its physiological importance ; its con- 
taminations ; its alterations under various meteorological 
conditions ; ventilation. The excretions ; their physiological 
significance; care of the bowels; the kidneys; the skin; 
the lungs. Physical exercise ; its importance ; its necessity ; 
its varieties ; its abuse. Rest ; mental and physical rest ; rel- 
ative rest and recreation ; sleep. The influence of abnormal 
conditions on health ; e.g. defective vision ; obstructed breath- 
ing ; adenoids ; tonsils ; defective and unclean teeth ; dis- 
eased gums ; sluggish ulcers, wounds, and old areas of irrita- 
tion ; exposures to heat, to cold, to moisture, and to drafts ; 
fatigue. The effects of bad habits on health ; e.g. rapid eat- 
ing ; mouth breathing ; unwise use of the eyes ; sex habits ; 
the abuse of tea, coffee, alcohol, and tobacco ; opium and 
cocaine habits. The causes of disease, such as pathogenic 



694 Principles of Secoiidary Education 

bacteria and other parasites. The carriers of disease, such as 
the fly, the mosquito, the flea, the rat, and careless human 
beings. Our defenses against disease, such as fresh air, sun- 
shine, cleanKness, and good health. Special hygiene, such as 
domestic hygiene, municipal hygiene, community hygiene, 
industrial hygiene, school hygiene, " sex hygiene." First 
aid to the injured, and the care and feeding of infants. 

Legal Requirements. — In most city school systems special 
emphasis is laid on the unhygienic influences of alcohol and 
tobacco. A number of state legislatures have enacted laws 
requiring such instruction in the schools of the state. The 
importance of this instruction is great. No course in hygiene 
can be complete without including a discussion of alcohol and 
tobacco. There is, however, a question as to the wisdom of 
specifying through state law that these subjects be included 
unless the law is made to cover in addition other equally im- 
portant subjects such as dental hygiene, the hygiene of ali- 
mentation, pathogenic bacteria, the fly and the mosquito as 
carriers of disease, spitting, and so on. Emphasizing the im- 
portance of instruction concerning the unhygienic effects of 
alcohol and tobacco through legal procedure must inevitably 
make other seriously important phases of hygiene seem to be 
a matter of secondary consideration. 

SCHOOL HYGIENE. — School hygiene, one of the most 
important departments of public hygiene, is concerned with 
the conditions of health in the schoolroom and the sanitation 
of the school surroundings. During the last fifty years the 
scientific method has been more and more employed in this 
field, and a solid nucleus of scientific fact has been collected. 
A rich hterature has been contributed in the form of articles, 
not only in the special periodicals devoted to the subject, in 
reports, proceedings of societies, and the like, but in the ar- 
chives of hygiene, of medicine, physics, psychology, anthro- 
pology, and even in those of architecture and engineering as 
well as in the educational journals. 



Hygiene and Physical Education 695 

School hygiene draws its facts from many sources, and 
naturally it overlaps other related subjects, such as general 
hygiene, sanitary engineering, medicine, child hygiene, etc. 
The subject naturally divides into three parts — the construc- 
tion and sanitation of the schoolhouse, the hygiene of the 
school child, and the hygiene of instruction. All of these are, 
of course, ultimately concerned with the health of the child, 
but the classification is a convenient one. The aim of all of 
these is positive, the development in the school child of habits 
of healthful activity. Especially and directly is this true of 
the last two divisions — the hygiene of the school child and 
the hygiene of instruction. 

Hygiene of the School Child. — Child hygiene in an impor- 
tant sense is a special subject because the child's body differs 
from that of the adult. The hygiene of the school child de- 
mands special consideration because of the special work re- 
quired in the school. It is based upon the character of the 
child's body and the laws of growth, and it seeks to determine 
the needs and to avoid the dangers of each stage of develop- 
ment. Hence among the important contributions to school 
hygiene in the last twenty-five years have been many scientific 
studies of growth and development, of the diseases and ab- 
normalities of school children, and of the defects of the various 
sense organs. Thus the relation of physical development to 
intelligence, the incidence of disease by years, by grades, by 
seasons, by months of the school year, the relation of defects 
to school progress, etc. Methods of detecting and controlling 
contagious diseases have been investigated, and certain im- 
portant correlations have already been established. By the 
introduction of health inspection into the public schools in 
recent years not only is the importance of school hygiene em- 
phasized, but a large amount of valuable material for the study 
of the subject is being collected. The school should be made 
the most important factor in public hygiene ; for in it practi- 
cally all the children are collected, and conditions can be con- 



696 Principles of Secondary Education 

trolled in the interests of health. The prime importance of 
this part of school hygiene for the teacher is obvious. 

Hygiene of Instruction. — While this department of school 
hygiene may be said to have begun with the Greeks and been 
treated by Comenius, it has been developed only in recent 
years. It is now so important, however, that Burgestein de- 
votes some four hundred pages to it in the second edition of 
his handbook, and each year brings important new contribu- 
tions. It emphasizes the hygienic importance of the mental 
habits formed by education and of the secondary effects of 
instruction, and it studies every educational principle and 
method and the matter of instruction from the point of view 
of hygiene. Thus each subject of instruction is considered 
with regard to the effect of the discipline on health. 

The many problems concerned with the period of study — 
fatigue, the best alternation of periods of work and rest, the 
length of the school day, one session or two, recesses, pauses, 
etc. — have all been made the subject of scientific investiga- 
tion. The importance of this newer field of school hygiene 
is seen when one considers the fact that an important means 
of curing nervous and mental disorder is reeducation, the 
development of healthful habits of mental activity, — whole- 
some interests, habits of attention, self-control, and orderly 
association, — in fact, the very habits that are essential for 
hygienic school work. And when one further reflects that the 
inmates of such institutions were a few years ago pupils in 
the public schools, the advantage of developing such habits 
as prophylactic against nervous and mental breakdown is 
obvious. More and more scientific investigation and obser- 
vation are showing the hygienic importance of such mental 
training ; and the hygiene of instruction has become of vital 
significance to the teacher. 

The Construction and Sanitation of the Schoolhouse. — 
First of all the sanitary surroundings of the schoolhouse have 
been made the subject of investigation. The schoolroom 



Hygiejie and Physical Education 697 

is a workshop. The conditions must be made hygienic for 
the work to be done in it. The work required is performed 
chiefly by the brain, by the eye and ear, and by the hand 
under the control of the eye and the brain. Thus the condi- 
tions necessary are not merely the avoidance of whatever 
would be injurious, — a stagnant, poisonous, arid, or over- 
heated atmosphere, too intense light, glare from surrounding 
buildings, noisy occupations, unsuitable rooms, etc. ; but in 
every way the optimum conditions for such work — especially 
abundant and properly regulated light and an ample supply of 
oxygen. So important is the condition last mentioned both 
for the health of the pupils and for the work to be done that 
the desirability of schools out of doors, or in conditions ap- 
proximating those out of doors, is now being emphasized. 
Since in most parts of the country, however, a large amount 
of indoor work seems necessary on account of inclement 
weather, it is becoming more and more important to provide 
hygienic conditions in the schoolroom. 

Thus this department of school hygiene is concerned first 
of all with the optimum conditions for a workshop where the 
laborers are growing children and the labor brain work. 
Architectural and artistic considerations are important, but 
secondary. First of all must be considered the health of the 
workers. For example, the unit in a schoolhouse is the school- 
room, and the size of the room should be determined by con- 
sideration of the average limits of normal sight and hearing ; 
while the problem of construction is that of grouping a sufficient 
number of such units in a schoolhouse in a convenient way to 
give suitable Hght, air, etc. Many scientific studies have been 
made of the best forms of construction, and of methods of 
heating, ventilation, lighting, etc. ; and from these and the 
experience in building millions of schoolhouses certain definite 
norms for construction have been estabhshed. If we could 
bring together into one schoolhouse all the good features that 
are actually incorporated in various schoolhouses throughout 



698 Principles of Secondary Education 

the country, features which actual experience has shown to be 
of practical utility, we should have a model schoolhouse. 
Most schoolhouses, however, are seriously defective in cer- 
tain aspects, and some apparently ignore modern hygiene 
altogether. 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. Early Conceptions. — In time 
past and in our own time physical education has been exalted, 
tolerated, neglected, or denounced, according to the prevaiKng 
conceptions as to the nature of the human body and of its 
relations to the human mind. The character of these con- 
ceptions has depended chiefly on the ideals of human ex7 
cellence held at different periods in the history of education. 
Those ideals may be characterized as the Greek or aesthetic, 
the monkish or ascetic, the military or knightly, and the 
modern or scientific. 

The Greek ideal recognized the unity or symmetry of body 
and mind as expressed by Plato in the Timceus. " Every- 
thing that is good is fair, and the fair is not without measure. 
Now, we perceive lesser symmetries and comprehend them, 
but about the highest and greatest we have no understanding, 
for there is no symmetry greater than that of the soul to the 
body. This, however, we do not perceive, nor do we allow 
ourselves to reflect that when a weaker or lesser frame is the 
vehicle of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little 
soul is incased in a large body, then the whole animal is not 
fair, for it is defective in the most important of all symmetries ; 
but the fair mind in the fair body will be the fairest and loveli- 
est of all sights to him who has the seeing eye." Gymnastics 
were accorded a large and important place in the educational 
program of Greek youths. The teaching of gymnastics 
afforded positions of honor and emolument to distinguished 
and ambitious men. Bodily training furnished themes for 
poets, philosophers, and historians; sculptors and painters 
sought models in the gymnasium, and Greek physicians 
studied and adopted exercises and procedures originated by 



Hygiene and Physical Education 699 

teachers and gymnasts. In the breadth and sanity of its 
aims, the completeness of its development as a national 
institution, and its abiding influence upon succeeding genera- 
tions, Greek physical education has no parallel. 

Modem Views. — The modern or scientific ideal of physical 
education owes its origin to the belief " that to work the mind 
is also to work a number of the bodily organs, that not a feeling 
can arise, not a thought pass, without a set of concurring bodily 
processes." The sciences of biology, physiology, and psychol- 
ogy have furnished a basis for the study and application of the 
laws governing the growth, development, and education of 
the body and mind. Man's knowledge of himself has been 
immensely increased, and his conception of nature and his 
place in nature radically changed. One of the most promi- 
nent results of the progress made in these sciences is a deeper 
appreciation of the vital importance of motor training in 
education. 

The modern or scientific ideal of physical education recog- 
nizes two chief aims : (i) health, normal growth, and develop- 
ment of the body as an efficient organism ; (2) psycho-motor 
education, with emphasis on bodily control and the expression 
of personality or character of the individuals. 

These ideals are based on the sciences of biology, physiology, 
psychology, and education, but physical education itself has 
not yet attained the dignity of a definite science. Since the 
somewhat crude attempt of Ling early in the nineteenth cen- 
tury to devise a system of gymnastics based on physiology and 
coordinated with educational procedure, much progress has 
been made in placing physical education on a scientific basis. 
During the period of evolution from crude empiricism to 
scientific principles, physical education has passed through 
many phases. 

Three distinct systems originated in Europe and developed 
simultaneously : the Swedish system of educational, military, 
and medical gymnastics devised by Ling and his followers; 



700 Principles of Secondary Education 

the German system of gymnastics developed by Guts Muth, 
Jahn, and Spiess ; and the British scheme of athletics and 
games fostered and developed in the universities and public 
schools. The Swedish and German systems had for their 
chief aim the training of strong, self-reliant, and patriotic 
citizens. The athletics and games of England developed 
naturally in response to the normal play instinct of English 
boys and young men. 

These well-defined national schemes for physical education 
have survived to the present day and spread to many lands. 
The Delsarte system of exercises was devised by Frangois 
Delsarte in Paris, about 1840, to train actors in dramatic 
expression. The Delsarte plan had such a limited scope 
that it could not gain recognition as a system of physical 
education. 

Forms of Exercise. — There are two main classes of 
gymnastic exercises : first, calisthenics, which includes free 
movements of arms, legs, trunk, etc. and exercises with dumb- 
bells, wands, bar bells, Indian clubs, rings, hoops, balls, etc. ; 
marching ; and dancing. Second, apparatus gymnastics, which 
includes parallel bars, vaulting and horizontal bars, horse, 
buck, vaulting box, stall bars, jump stands, ropes, poles, 
ladders, and many kinds of developing appliances, such as 
chest weights, and other machines built on the principle of 
weight and pulley or friction. 

Gymnastics and Athletics. — The main difference between 
gymnastics and athletics is one of aim. The aim of gymnastics 
is discipline or training for its effect upon the health, normal 
development, and general efficiency of the individual. The 
chief aim of athletics is pleasurable activity for the sake of 
recreation ; in the athletic games of boys and young men we 
see the highest and fullest expression of the play instinct. 
While the characteristic aims of gymnastics and athletics are 
essentially different, some of the most important results of 
physical training are secured from both forms of activity. This 



Hygiene and Physical Education 701 

is true especially of the hygienic effects of muscular activity 
upon the circulation, respiration, digestion, assimilation, and 
excretion. These effects vary over wide limits according to the 
kind of exercise selected. 

Educative Value. — In considering the educative value of 
gymnastics and athletics the most important principle is, that 
neither of these activities can serve as a substitute for the 
other. Each contributes some essential parts of a complete 
physical education. Gymnastic exercises are largely subjec- 
tive in character ; they serve particularly to stimulate normal 
physical development and to promote good carriage and easy 
coordination in motion and locomotion. Every gymnastic 
exercise is given for a definite purpose. The object may be 
to secure motor coordination, hygienic benefit, or some aes- 
thetic effect. In this respect, gymnastics differs radically from 
athletic exercises, for in the latter the primary object is 
always to produce some effect outside of the individual, as 
hitting a ball, throwing an object as far as possible, or 
reaching a goal before an opponent. The effect of such ex- 
ercises upon the individual is always incidental and second- 
ary. Another advantage of gymnastics is, that selection 
based on scientific principles of anatomy, physiology, and 
mechanics makes it possible to adapt each exercise to the 
particular needs of the individual, with a view to producing the 
effect desired. The educative, hygienic, and sesthetic effects of 
exercise are susceptible of definite control in gymnastics, but 
in athletics the effects produced on the individual are indefinite 
and accidental. The particular effect produced by gymnas- 
tics depends partly upon the movements selected, but mostly 
upon the manner of their execution. The best hygienic effects 
are produced by adapting the movements to the strength of 
the individual, bringing into play the large muscles of the 
trunk and thighs, and accompanying the exercise with music, 
which adds pleasure to the work. The educative effects are 
best secured by careful selection and sequence of exercises 



702 Principles of Secondary Education 

suited to the state of psycho-motor development of the indi- 
vidual, and by a method of teaching which demands accuracy, 
precision, and speed in execution. The aesthetic effects of 
form, carriage, and grace of motion and locomotion result from 
gymnastic dancing and other exercises of the same type. 
The recreative value of gymnastics depends upon the ability 
of the teacher to make the work interesting, and in a measure 
upon the attitude of the student toward the work. 

In general, the relative effects secured from gymnastics and 
athletics are as follows : 



Gymnastics 



Primary Effects: 
Educative 
Hygienic 
Esthetic 



Primary Effects: 
Organic (vigor) 
Psycho-motor 
Recreative 
Moral 



Athletics 



Secondary Effects: 
Organic (vigor) 
Recreative 
Psycho-motor 
Moral 



Secondary Effects: 
Educative 
Hygienic 
Esthetic 



It is very evident from this table that gymnastics constitutes 
an essential part of a rational scheme of physical education. 
The results obtained from gymnastic training vary widely 
for the same reasons that results vary in all branches of educa- 
tion. Poor teaching and inadequate facilities always produce 
unsatisfactory results in gymnastics as in any other subject- 
The need for systematic psycho-motor training and vigorous 
muscular activity for organic development tends to increase as 
life becomes more complex and specialized. The growing 
appreciation of the physical basis of human efficiency cannot 
fail to bring about increased recognition for gymnastics in the 
school curriculum, more competent teachers, and increased 
material equipment. 



Hygiene and Physical Education 703 

In Schools. — In the private secondary and preparatory 
schools, physical education is organized much the same as in 
the colleges. The importance of motor education, health su- 
pervision, and moral education during the adolescent period 
is generally recognized by educators in the secondary schools. 
All the large schools and most of the smaller ones have well- 
organized departments of physical education in charge of 
professionally trained directors. The first attempt to include 
physical education in the program of the public schools was 
during the decade 1 860-1 870, when the caKsthenics advocated 
by Dr. Dio Lewis had a wave of popularity. The interest 
lasted only a few years, and physical education was again 
neglected until the decade 1 880-1 890, when a number of 
Western cities with a large German population introduced 
light gymnastics of the German type in the public schools. 
The growth of cities, industrial development, and the rapid 
expansion during this period were factors in arousing the inter- 
est of educators and the public to the importance of providing 
physical training for the children in the schools. The city 
homes could not furnish the necessary environment for the 
normal physical development and motor training of the 
growing generation, and the need of modifying the school 
curriculum to meet the new conditions was recognized. In 
1889 3. conference in the interest of physical education took 
place in Boston. The conference was presided over by United 
States Commissioner of Education William T. Harris, and 
addresses were made by prominent educators, physicians, and 
specialists in physical education. The purpose of the confer- 
ence was to " place before educators different systems of 
gymnastics and to secure discussion of the same, with a view to 
ascertaining clearly the needs of schools, and determining how 
they may best be met." A direct result of the Boston confer- 
ence was the organization of a department of hygiene and 
physical training and the adoption of the Swedish system of 
gymnastics in the public schools of Boston. New York and 



704 Principles of Secondary Education 

many other cities soon followed, with the result that by 1900 
nearly all the cities in the East, Middle West, and West had 
some form of physical education in the school program. The 
most common system of gymnastics in use in the school is the 
Swedish, or some modification of this system. A few large 
cities, particularly in the Middle West and Southwest, have 
adopted the German system. 

Special directors and teachers are employed for physical 
training in about half of the cities where this subject is taught. 
The most common form of organization is a department with 
a director of physical training for the city, special teachers in 
the high schools, and supervisors in the elementary schools, 
who visit each class once or twice each inonth to criticize and 
help the grade teacher. The athletic activities of the school- 
boys were developed by the boys in many cities without 
direction or supervision from the school authorities. Since 
the organization of the Public Schools Athletic League the 
school authorities in many cities have taken control of this 
important phase of physical and moral education. 

Gymnastics for Girls. — In all schemes of education, the 
tendency has been to provide better facilities and a more 
extensive curriculum for boys than for girls. This has been 
true particularly in regard to physical training. In Germany, 
England, and the United States various forms of physical 
training were provided for boys, while this subject was entirely 
neglected in schools for girls. Adolf Spiess, the founder of 
German school gymnastics, was the first to advocate gymnas- 
tic training for girls, but the traditional idea that womanly 
deportment is in contradiction to exercise has hindered the 
development of physical training for girls. Organic vigor and 
psycho-motor development are as essential to girls as to boys. 
The results to be accomphshed are the same, but the methods 
employed must vary because of physiological differences in the 
two sexes. 

The gymnastics best suited to girls include marching, 



Hygiefie and Physical Education 705 

calisthenics without hand apparatus and with wooden dumb 
bells, wands, bar bells, Indian clubs, rings, hoops, etc. ; simple 
exercises in vaulting and climbing (omitting, in general, all 
exercises requiring support of the body on the arms for more 
than an instant) ; easy exercises in jumping ; and dancing. 
Esthetic and folk dancing constitute one of the most valuable 
forms of physical training for girls of all ages. By means of 
judicious selection and adaptation, it is possible to secure 
from dancing most of the essential values of exercise, such as 
organic vigor, psycho-motor training, and recreation. Girls 
need also the training that comes from participation in ath- 
letic sports and team games. The qualities of courage, self- 
reliance, loyalty, and capacity to cooperate with others and 
subordinate personal interests to the interests of the team, which 
result from participation in team games and sports, are as de- 
sirable for girls as for boys. This training is especially valuable 
to counteract the tendency of some girls to be sensitive and 
introspective — to Kve too much on the subjective side of life. 
In general, girls under twelve or thirteen years of age can do 
all except the very strenuous exercises indulged in by boys 
of the same age. With the onset of puberty, considerable 
modification of the forms of exercise given to girls is made 
imperative by the anatomical and physiological changes which 
occur at that time. The most important modifications nec- 
essary are the ehmination of exercises requiring the support 
of the whole body by the shoulder girdle for more than an 
instant, the restriction of exercises involving jumping to those 
involving very Httle jarring of the body, and in general the 
elimination of violent exercises. The introduction of competi- 
tive athletic games in schools and colleges for girls from 1890 
to 1900 was accompanied in some places by public contests 
between teams representing different institutions. This fea- 
ture of athletics for girls has been abandoned by the leading 
schools and colleges because it was found to be detrimental 
to the best interests of education. 

2Z 



7o6 Principles of Secondary Education 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. Should personal hygiene be taught as a special subject or in con- 
nection with the work in physical education ? 

2. What are the general educational and social values of a study or 
training in personal hygiene ? 

3. What are the relations between moral education and instruction 
in personal hygiene ? 

4. Should instruction in sex hygiene be made a part of instruction in 
personal hygiene ? If so, how should instruction be given ? 

5. In any given school system in which you have had experience, 
what aspects of hygiene are taught and how ? 

6. What should be the scope of a course in personal hygiene for the 
high school ? 

7. What are the merits and demerits, educational, moral, social, 
of compulsory teaching of the effects of alcohol and tobacco ? 

8. To what extent are the generally accepted principles of school 
hygiene violated in your school? 

9. What are some of the problems of school hygiene that could 
properly and profitably be studied by the high school pupil ? 

10. What are the forms of instruction in physical education in any 
given school ? What are their merits and how could they be improved ? 

11. To what extent is gymnasium wort desirable or necessary? 

12. What modification of the standard forms of activities in physical 
education are desirable for high school girls ? 

REFERENCES 

Personal Hygiene 

Blaikie, Wm. How to Get Strong and How to Keep So. New York, 1899. 

Clouston, T. S. Hygiene of Mind. London, 1906. 

FoREL, A. H. Hygiene of Nerves and Mind in Health and Disease. 
Authorized translation from the second German edition by H. A. 
Aikins. New York, 1907. 

Galbraith, a. M. Personal Hygiene and Physical Training for Women. 
Philadelphia, 191 1. 

Greene, C. A. The Art of Keeping Well. New York, 1906. 

GuLiCK, L. H. The Efficient Life. New York, 1907. 

Hough, Th., and Sedgwick, W. T. The Human Mechanism, its Physi- 
ology and Hygiene and the Sanitation of its Surroundings. Boston, 
1906. 



Hygiene and Physical Ed^ication 707 

Le Bosquet, M. Personal Hygiene. Chicago, 1907. 

Pyle, W. L. a Manual oj Personal Hygiene. Philadelphia, 1907. 

Storey, T. A. Individual Instruction in Personal Hygiene. Proceed- 
ings of the Fifth Congress of the American School Hygiene Association, 
February, 191 1, pp. 149-152. 

WooDHULL, A. A. Personal Hygiene. New York, 1906. 

School Hygiene 

Abbott, A. C. The Hygiene of Transmissible Diseases. 2d ed. Phila- 
delphia, 1901. 

Bergey, D. H. The Principles of Hygiene. Philadelphia, 1906. 

Blyth, a. W. Manual of Public Health. New York, 1890. 

Dresslar, F. B. School Hygiene. New York, 19 13. 

Harrington, C. A. A Manual of Practical Hygiene for Students, 
Physicians, and Medical Officers. New York, 1901. 

Macfie, R. C. Air and Health. London, 1909. 

Notter, J. L., and Firth, R. H. Theory and Practice of Hygiene, 
London, 1908. 

Parkes, L. C, and Kenwood, H. R. Hygiene and Public Health. 
Philadelphia, 19 11. 

Sedgwick, W. T. The Principles of Sanitary Science and the Public 
Health. New York, 1902. 

Saleeby, C. W. Health, Strength, and Happiness ; a Book of Practical 
Advice. New York, 1908. 

Stevenson, T., and Murphy, S. F. A Treatise on Hygiene and Public 
Health. Philadelphia, 1892. 

Weyl, T. Handbuch der Hygiene. Jena, 1893. 10 vols, and Supple- 
ment, 4 vols., 1901-1904. 

Periodicals : 
Archiv fiir Hygiene. Herausgegeben von M. Grubner. Munich, 1896- . 
Journal of Hygiene. G. H. F. Nuttall, editor. Cambridge, 1901-1910. 
Journal of the American Public Health Association. B. R. Rickards, 

editor. Urbana, 111., 1904- . 
Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute. Edward Stanford, editor. 

London, 1899- . 

Teaching of Hygiene 

Cabot, R. C. The Problem of Teaching Sex Hygiene. Proceedings of 
the American School Hygiene Association, Vol. III. 

Eliot, C. W. School Instruction in Sex Hygiene. Proceedings of the 
American School Hygiene Association, Vol. Ill, 



7o8 Principles of Secondary Education 

Gartner, A. Hygiene-unterricht in Schulen und Seminaren. Schul- 
hygienisches Taschenbuch, pp. 290-297. Leipzig, 1907. 

GuLiCK, L. H. Status of Physical Education in Ninety Public Normal 
Schools and 2392 Public High Schools in the United States. Pro- 
ceedings of the American School Hygiene Association, Vol. II. 
What American Cities are Doing for the Health of School Children. 
Proceedings of the American School Hygiene Association, Vol. III. 

HiNES, L. N. Some Suggestions for a Course of Study in Hygiene. 
Proceedings of the American School Hygiene Association, Vol. III. 

Storey, T. A. Individual Instruction in Personal Hygiene. Proceed- 
ings of the American School Hygiene Association, Vol. III. 

Gymnastics 

Alexander, A. Healthful Exercises for Girls. London, 1887. 
Bancroft, Jessie H. School Gymnastics with Light Apparatus. Boston, 

1900. 
Betz, C. The Public School Gymnastic Course. Chicago, 1894. 
Dudley, Gertrude, and Kellor, Frances. Athletic Games in the 

Education of Women. New York, 1909. 
Maul. Turnunterricht in Mddchenschiilen. Karlsruhe, 1893, 1895, 1897. 
NissEN, Hartvig. a. B. C. of Swedish Educational Gymnastics. 

Philadelphia, 1892. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ATHLETICS 

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF ATHLETICS. — The educa- 
tional values of athletics are primarily those of all vigorous 
neuromuscular exercise, (i) Exercise secures organic develop- 
ment, i.e. the development to the limit of inherited possibiHties, 
during the growth of the individual from infancy to maturity, 
of those organs and functions that give vitaHty, vigor, func- 
tional power for health. (2) Exercise secures psycho-motor 
development, i.e. the development of that control of the mus- 
cular system which gives skill, body resourcefulness, and 
the fundamental basis for a broad " manual," industrial, and 
artistic training. (3) Exercise gives the opportunity for se- 
curing a mental and moral discipline (a) by giving a drill in 
vigorous activities which require alertness, effort, determina- 
tion ; (b) by giving self-knowledge of physical powers through 
comparison with others ; (c) by giving standards for intelligent 
care of the body, especially the nervous system, to secure the 
greatest physical efficiency; (d) by giving discipline in self- 
control; (e) by giving concepts of " team work " or coopera- 
tive self-subordination and social experience under conditions 
that identify the youth with the social interests of the group 
demanding cooperation. 

These values may be secured with different emphasis through 
industrial labor, gymnastics, vigorous play, or athletics. The 
aim in each of these activities is different, hence the bodily 
results vary. In industrial activities, the aim is industrial 
results ; the bodily results may be and usually are very un- 
balanced. In gymnastics, the aim is physical development 

709 



7IO Prmciples of Secondary Education 

through set, formal movements, definitely arranged and sus- 
ceptible of predetermination as to results. In athletics 
(though they may also be taken consciously for the exercise), 
the aim is the contest, and the movements depend upon the 
exigencies of the contest. The exercise is not so easily prede- 
termined as to results. This gives gymnastics the advantage 
in the precision of physical results that may be secured. In 
athletics the movements are more specialized and less easily 
controlled, though they may be graded loosely to fit individual 
needs and tastes. While athletics, generally speaking, secure 
all results, gymnastics will succeed in some cases where ath- 
letics will fail. The advantages of athletics over gymnastics 
arise from their competitive and social nature. While ath- 
letics may be used as gymnastics, and some forms of gymnas- 
tics may be used in the spirit of athletics, and each made to 
grade one into the other, athletics are fundamentally competi- 
tive and social ; gymnastics are so only by consent. Ath- 
letics, being competitive and social, rouse a broader range of 
social impulses and emotions than gymnastics. They furnish 
possibilities for a deeper social stimulus and training. Gym- 
nastics gain all fundamental results, but cannot compare with 
athletics in these broader disciplinary values. From the view- 
point of general education and a broad physical education, 
athletics must be considered coordinate with gymnastics in 
composing the technique of physical education for youth. 
Athletics probably possess the larger values, but no broad 
rational system of physical education can be based on either 
alone. 

Athletics, being contests between two or more individuals, 
are essentially social, and require organization through mutual 
agreement. Several possible groupings of individuals for 
contests may take place in any social community, (i) Two 
or more individuals or groups of individuals may organize 
spontaneously, day by day, irrespective of social affiliations, 
for a contest or a period of play. This is the usual method 



Athletics 711 

among town boys, town men, schoolboys, and many college 
men untouched by an athletic association. (2) Permanent 
associations may be organized to furnish facilities for contests 
among members, as is usually the case in local clubs such as 
tennis and golf associations. (3) Institutional groups or asso- 
ciations organized for other functions than athletics may or- 
ganize for the development of facilities and the promotion of 
interest, as is usually the case in schools and clubs. (4) Finally 
the members of the whole complex group, the institution, town, 
city, or nation, may organize under the name of the group for 
intergroup, interinstitutional, or international contests with 
other groups. The conditions affecting the development of ath- 
letics in these various groups differ. Many of the tendencies 
to evil grow with progress from the simpler to the more complex 
forms of organization. Under simple conditions the manage- 
rial function is undifferentiated. With the development of 
athletics in formal organization the managerial function arises 
as a distinct special force. 

Athletics, like all games, are passed on by tradition — by 
imitation and by the older and experienced teaching the younger 
and inexperienced. As athletics progress in formal organiza- 
tion, the instructional function tends to be differentiated and 
specialized, and the instructor or coach develops, with special 
powers for good or evil. 

CREATIVE FORCES IN ATHLETICS. —All the various 
forms of athletics are created and all the dift'erent tendencies in 
development are determined by two different classes of in- 
terests in contests common to all men : the participant's or 
contestant's impulses, pleasures, and interests in the activities 
and result of the contest, and the spectator's impulses, pleas- 
ures, and interests in the contest and its results as a spectacle. 

The Contestant's Incentives. — The contestant's pleasures 
and interests develop out of a series of play tendencies which 
must be understood to understand athletics. At the founda- 
tion of all vigorous muscular play there is a pleasure in the 



712 Principles of Secondary Education 

mere motor discharge exhibited by the young of all animals — 
a satisfaction of the primitive hunger for activity. To these 
fundamental pleasures there are added a long series of pleas- 
urable emotional states. There is the conflict of daring and 
fear in feats, the pleasure in accomplishment and success, the 
pleasure and pride in overcoming difficulties and encountering 
risk or danger with all its emotional tension, the exaltation that 
comes in the rebound from fear, from the tension of expecta- 
tion, and from the shock of surprise, the pleasure of enduring 
hardships and suppressing pain, the pleasure in mastery of self, 
the inspiration of being a cause, and allthe emotional content 
which holds attention and heightens the reality of life, which 
is opposed to ennui, and which for the adolescent is a neuro- 
logical necessity. Then there are the impulses which influence 
the form of play. Through all childhood there is intense 
pleasure in being chased and chasing, hiding, being sought and 
seeking. The combative social and egoistic impulses, appear- 
ing in play from early childhood, become especially prominent 
with adolescence. Simple running for its own sake soon loses 
its charm and must be turned into a contest, thus satisfying the 
combative impulse. Rolling about on the floor is turned into a 
tussle. The egoistic impulse combines with the combative to 
give keenness to do something as well as or better than some 
one else. This tendency becomes peculiarly strong in the 
adolescent period, the athletic age. 

The social impulses, with perhaps some sexual elements, add 
their force. A desire for social applause and approbation leads 
often to self-exhibition and a display of skill or courage. 
Especially keen is the pleasure of achievement in competition 
under social conditions, perhaps the highest stimulus and 
satisfaction in youth to the egoistic impulses and emotions. 
Cravings for self-testings, self-evaluation, the determination 
of one's social status, become prominent. Where these im- 
pulses come in contact with developed or traditional play ac- 
tivities, as in athletics, there arises spontaneously a craving 



Athletics 713 

to gain one's place in the social system, to become a member of 
the team, to represent one's fellows, to support the honor of the 
group, and to win the satisfaction and. applause of achievement, 
to gain honor. Public interest intensifies these expressions. 
To be prominent in social activities is one of the most stimulat- 
ing of social motives. 

Athletics are then the more formal contests among plays and 
games, limited by set rules and arranged by social usage or 
agreement to give the la,rgest satisfaction to the combative, 
egoistic, and social impulses and emotions. The primary 
incentive in athletics is to secure these pleasures. Uninflu- 
enced from without, there is no other conscious aim than these 
pleasures. With the development of athletics in social prom- 
inence, motives become more and more social, centering in 
honor. A series of secondary interests and motives arise, such 
as a desire for social prominence, leadership, or power. Under 
the stimulus of social applause and the desire for honor, the 
primary pleasures in the contest may be replaced by discomfort 
or hardship, or even pain, yet the motive sustains the effort. 
If to these highly developed motives the desire for material 
gain is added, the aim becomes professional. How the motives 
in the individual shall develop is determined by his tempera- 
ment and the social conditions surrounding him. It is in the 
soil of specialized social motives, so far as the athlete is con- 
cerned, that most of the difficulties in athletics develop. 

The nature of the incentives that create play and athletics 
and the need of vigorous neuromuscular activities during the 
entire period of growth and development in order to realize 
bodily powers, reveal the functions and meaning of athletics. 
Nature made the play impulse the guardian of physical and 
mental needs. As contests appear with, and are especially 
characteristic of, the adolescent period, they may fairly be 
considered the natural vigorous exercise of youth. In this 
sense they may be interpreted as nature's means of physical 
education during the adolescent period. The primary motives 



714 Principles of Secondary Education 

in athletics and the normal results are purely educational; 
the youth's aim in contests is pleasure ; nature's aim is educa- 
tion. In these activities, youth has inherent rights, and so- 
ciety is profoundly affected morally and socially by neglect 
or protection of these rights. The place of athletics among the 
social customs of a people and in an educational system must 
be determined theoretically by the necessary amount of daily 
vigorous activity required during the successive years of youth 
to develop complete organic power and fundamental psycho- 
motor skill, by the relative superiority of athletics to any 
other vigorous activity for moral and social discipline, and by 
the influence of these activities on the general recreative and 
social customs of the people. 

The Spectator's Incentives. — The spectator's interest in 
athletics, like the participant's, arises from a deep-seated tend- 
ency in human nature. It is closely related to the dramatic 
interest. The struggles of others excite, fascinate, sway. 
Through sympathy the spectator enters into the struggle. 
Especially strong is the excitement in fighting contests. Hu- 
man nature loves to see a fight. The extremes of emotion 
aroused are best illustrated by the world's great fighting spec- 
tacles : the gladiatorial contest, the chariot race, and the bull 
fight of earHer times ; the horse race, the prize fight, and the 
professional baseball contest of modern times. The less 
extreme expressions are seen in the support of traveling 
acrobats, foot racers, and games not intended for spectators. 
Out of this primal interest in a struggle, common to all human 
beings, evolves the spectator. 

The nature of the contest that will satisfy different indi- 
viduals depends on character, intelligence, training, culture, and 
life conditions. On one side there are those who are satis- 
fied with the pleasures of a skillful contest between gentlemen, 
on the other those who are satisfied only with a fierce personal, 
often brutal, combat that reveals and rouses primitive human 
passions. Between these two extremes are all pleasure seekers 



AtJiletics 715 

at an athletic contest. In the development of all sports these 
two classes are ever in opposition. The desires of the one, 
therefore its influence, are in direct opposition to the other. 
Neither can be satisfied permanently with what pleases the 
other. The development of athletics in the group will be 
according to which element dominates in the creation of public 
sentiment. In proportion as the extreme spectacle-loving ele- 
ment can make its desires felt, will the anti-social tendencies, 
revealed in the destruction of many sports in the past, reappear. 
The human tendencies exhibited in the more or less extinct 
or disgraced contests of the past are still active, and reveal 
themselves in athletics to-day as in older times. 

Many characters are not satisfied with the emotions con- 
nected with the spectacle alone. They must play with the 
emotions of chance and intensify the pleasures in the spectacle 
by a wager on the result, hence gambling becomes associated 
with the contest. Furthermore, many live over an emotional 
reverberation of the contest after it is finished, thus developing 
athletic gossip and the sporting sheet in newspapers, which in 
turn arouses the same tendencies in others. 

The spectator everywhere tends to take sides and become 
a partisan. With the development of athletics, the organiza- 
tion of intergroup contests, and the selection of a team to 
represent the group, partisan athletics arise ; the spectator 
becomes an institutional partisan and takes on a new power 
for influence. Social pride, clannishness, rivalry, and all the 
emotions exhibited by a group in competition with another 
group, surround the contest. Group becomes arrayed against 
group. The contest tends to take on the characteristics of 
group war. Public interest becomes partisan, and the par- 
tisan aim becomes the dominant aim. Interest centers in the 
emotions connected with the chances of winning, and shifts 
to an emphasis on results. Partisan demonstrations add 
to the spectacle, which attracts an ever-widening circle of 
spectators. 



7i6 Principles of Secondary Education 

The influence of the spectator on the more complex develop- 
ment of athletics has been profound. The spectator's pleasure 
in the skilled exhibition or contest, and his willingness to 
pay for the pleasure, added to the economic needs of some 
skillful performers, have created the professional athlete and 
professional athletics. The professional makes a business of 
training and developing personal skill to supply a social de- 
mand for amusement. His activities can no longer be classified 
as play. Again the spectator, as indicated in the social ele- 
ments of the contestant's incentives, supplies the more stim- 
ulating applause, approbation, and honors, and, as his in- 
terest centers on the more exciting contests and the most 
skilled athletes, he tends to mold the athlete's motives and the 
form of his activities. The athlete's motives and the specta- 
tor's interests tend to complement each other. This tendency 
is particularly conspicuous in intergroup partisan athletics. 
The susceptibilities of different individuals to the influences 
of the spectator vary greatly, but the combination of the 
specialized social motives in some athletes and the spectator's 
desires tends to the development of a form of specialized, highly 
skilled athletics primarily for the amusement of the spectator. 
The athlete requires special training, thus emphasizing the 
coaching function ; the spectator's interests require manage- 
ment, thus emphasizing the managerial function. Therefore 
the influence of the spectator, while a stimulating, though 
unessential force in the development of athletics, tends toward 
a narrow, highly skilled form of athletics rather than toward a 
widening sway of the athletic interest as an educational force. 
Hence, the spectator and his influence are the most serious 
problem in the advancing power of athletics. 

EVILS OF ATHLETICS. — A number of evils are associ- 
ated with athletic activities, but a distinction should be made 
between elemental tendencies to evil and the exaggerated com- 
plications of these evils through specific influences in the de- 
velopment of athletics. 



Athletics 717 

1 . There is the tendency, associated with all vigorous activ- 
ities, to physical injury. This tendency is increased by an 
individual's competing in activities for which he is unfitted, 
inadequately trained, or improperly equipped, or against in- 
dividuals out of his class, or while fatigued, etc. The tend- 
ency may be minimized by proper inspection, classification, 
and training. 

2. There is the tendency, associated with many pleasurable 
activities, to over-indulgence which results in physical harm 
and a dissipation of time. This is chiefly a product of ill- 
advised enthusiasm, and is exaggerated by the pressure of 
partisan rivalry. It is eliminated by competent supervision 
or leadership. 

3. There is the tendency to specialization which may result 
in unbalanced development and unfortunate play habits. 
It is exaggerated artificially by the pressure of partisan rivalry 
in intergroup competition. It may be eliminated by com- 
petent supervision. 

4. There is the tendency, common to all social competition, 
to bad manners, to irritability in defeat and gloating in victory, 
though .individuals differ greatly in these tendencies. The 
tendency is exaggerated by bad play traditions in the group, 
by bad leadership, by disrespect for rivals, by bad treatment 
on the part of rivals, and by the pressure of partisans. It 
may be controlled by strong leadership in building wholesome 
play standards, and by good management, instruction, and 
discipline. 

5. There is a tendency to evasions of the rules of the game. 
The rules are articles of agreement under which a trial of skill 
is to be made, violations of which are dishonest. The limita- 
tions of the rules offer temptations which test character and 
training. The tendency is exaggerated by bad play traditions, 
by vicious instructions from coaches, by suspicion of rivals, 
by partisan pressure to win, etc. The tendency may be con- 
trolled by strong leadership in the development of sentiment 



7i8 Principles of Secondary Edtication 

among athletes and by an administration that counteracts the 
influence of the spectator. 

6. There is a tendency to violations of the principles of 
classification in any group which under the law of participa- 
tion narrows participation. This tendency is seen under sim- 
ple conditions and in small groups where the older, stronger, 
and more aggressive eliminate the younger, weaker, or timid 
from certain games. It is seen under complex conditions in 
large groups where there is a temptation to neglect players 
less skilled than the few best or to use players not legitimately 
members of the group. The tendency to violate an accepted 
classification and thus to gain an advantage is strikingly 
exaggerated through the pressure of partisan rivalry, the 
interests of the professional coach, and suspicion of rivals 
in intergroup contests. This tendency may be minimized 
by educational leadership that will control the influence 
of partisan and coach. Public opinion may here be very 
effective. 

7. There is the tendency for athletics to come under the 
control of the spectator and develop into specialized intergroup 
partisan contests, which in turn tends to destroy general 
participation and the social respect for athletics. This tend- 
ency is especially strong in the later years of youth. With 
the development of intergroup contests, the desire to win tends 
to become extreme. Group pride is involved, and success 
coveted as an honor. This intensification of the desire to win 
and the exaggeration of the importance of winning tend to 
destroy the character of athletics as play. Training for skill 
is pushed to the limit of youthful endurance. This, though the 
discipline may be commended, few individuals are capable 
of enduring. Exceptional individuals must carry the burden, 
so there is selected a special group of athletes on which specta- 
tors, coaches, and managers focus their attention, leaving the 
majority of the group forgotten and neglected. Exceptional 
individuals are scarce, hence partisans search for them, and 



Athletics 719 

proselyting or recruiting methods develop, which promote 
violations of the laws of classification. Even for the excep- 
tional athlete, play is changed into work, and the maximum 
energy and time become consumed. As a natural result there 
arises for some athletes the question : What is there in it ? 
This the partisan tends to meet by extra encouragements, 
inducements, honors, and rewards, and petty professional 
practices develop which are perpetuated by custom and the 
enthusiasm of partisans. The extreme speciahzed training 
aggravates the lesser tendencies to evil, to counteract which 
artificial methods are adopted. Trainers, rubbers, and the 
training . table are employed to meet the physical needs ; 
officials are multiplied to minimize the tendencies to unsocial 
acts and violations of the rules of the game ; and complex 
eligibility codes are formulated to reduce the tendency to ig- 
nore the laws of classification. 

Both managerial and instructional functions tend to be- 
come totally divorced from the play needs of the masses of 
youth and to become highly specialized agents of the spectator. 
The coach, being judged by the results of contests, concen- 
trates his efforts on exceptional athletes. The manager, being 
dependent on the spectator for finances, tends to manage 
solely in the interest of the spectator. This management and 
the expenses connected with the equipment of teams, cost of 
games and trips, officials, training tables, coaches, trainers, 
rubbers, doctors' bills, medical supplies, honors, rewards, 
privileges, etc., tend to surround athletics with a strong com- 
mercial atmosphere, unwholesome and destructive to the play 
spirit. The final tendency of partisan athletics is toward a 
business, involving a few specialized athletes performing for 
the satisfaction of partisans, which is essentially professional in 
methods and commercial in character. Youth tends to lose 
all sense of athletics as a natural, valuable, and dignified ac- 
tivity, and public opinion tends to consider athletics merely as 
a spectacle. How far this evolution will proceed in the organ- 



720 Principles of Secondary Edtication 

ized athletics in any group will depend upon the age of the 
contestants and the elements to be controlled. 

Several factors tend to exaggerate the specializing influence 
of the spectator. The press associates partisan contests not 
with educational topics, but with professional baseball, 
prize fighting, and horse-racing gossip, thus misguiding public 
opinion. Educators, concentrated on intellectual education, 
tend to avoid leadership in the outdoor life of youth. They 
tend to leave managers, coaches, and players without super- 
vision, subject to the domination of partisans, and free to use 
their own methods. Winning teams have been associated with 
the advertising movement, especially in colleges, .and this 
leads educators to tolerate unwholesome practices. The same 
results flow from suspicion of rivals. 

Of these several tendencies to evil in athletics, the first three, 
or the tendencies to physical injury, over-indulgence, and 
specialization, reduce or destroy the valuable physical results 
of play ; the fourth and fifth, or the tendencies to bad manners 
and violations of the rules of the game, reduce or destroy the 
valuable moral results ; the sixth and seventh, or the tenden- 
cies to violations of the law of classification and to control by 
spectators, reduces or destroys the educational values of ath- 
letics for the many, and the social respect for athletics among 
serious people. 

It is clear that the tendencies to evil increase in seriousness 
as youth approaches maturity, as the intergroup organization 
becomes emphasized, and as the partisan spirit develops. 

CONTROL OF ATHLETICS. — The importance and the 
values of athletics in the hfe of youth, the factors controlling 
participation, and the tendencies to evil, show a need of admin- 
istrative authority with larger vision and broader educational 
powers than are possessed by youth. Experience has shown that 
the play life of both children and youth must be supervised, if the 
values of play are to be secured and the evils eliminated. This 
control becomes increasingly important with the advancing 



A thletics 7 2 1 

years of youth because the factors tending to ehminate from 
participation and the tendencies to evil become more influential. 
The values of athletics are the normal product of the athletic 
impulse ; the evils are the product of the ignorance of youth, 
social influences beyond its understanding, and the neglect of 
natural leaders or teachers. Youth is helpless alone to under- 
stand or control the factors influencing participation or the 
factors causing tendencies to evil. Educators or social workers 
start a reform wave when they realize that neglect has divorced 
athletic influences from the aims of education, that the masses 
of youth have lost the habit of and respect for participation, 
and that public opinion through lack of respect is unfavorable 
and depressing to the general spirit of play among youth. 
Attempted reform often precipitates an athletic struggle 
between the reform interests and the interests in control of 
the athletics to be reformed. Potentially or actually this 
struggle exists under all conditions because of the contrast in 
tendencies between the two primary interests in contests and 
a corresponding contrast in public opinion. Between the 
two primary interests a transitional mixture of the two exists 
which causes most of the struggle. These three interests 
give three general concepts of what athletics are for and whom 
they are for, to which all current opinions and attitudes refer 
and which determine all policies and methods in the administra- 
tion of athletics. These concepts may be formulated as fol- 
lows : (i) Athletics are solely for the pleasure of the specta- 
tor and the profit of the athlete who furnishes the pleasure. 
(2) Athletics are primarily for the pleasure of the spectator, 
especially the partisan sympathizer, and secondarily for the 
pleasure or honor of the athlete. (3) Athletics are primarily 
for the benefit of the athlete seeking pleasure and achieving 
organic and social power, for the fellowship, sympathy, unity, 
and loyalty among members of the team and (where inter- 
group teams exist) among the members of the social group 
which the team represents. If athletics are organized and 

3A 



72 2 Principles of Secondary Education 

administered on the first of these concepts, there arise pure 
professional athletics, or athletics for the spectator. This 
concept has its legitimate place ; to it, in respectable expres- 
sions, there have been no serious objections so long as it keeps 
its place. If athletics are organized and administered on the 
third of these concepts, " educational athletics," as defined 
above, are the result. If athletics are organized and adminis- 
tered on the second of these concepts, there develops a class 
of athletics somewhere between " educational athletics " 
and professional athletics, which are seldom truly educational, 
and more seldom frankly professional. The tendency they 
take depends upon the class of characters dominant in the 
control of their organization and administration. In this 
concept there is nothing that is distinctly independent of the 
other two. It is a transitional mixture of the two primary 
interests. In it there is nothing that does not logically belong 
to the first or the third concept. It is based on misguided 
notions, half-evolved customs, and incomplete logic. 

Again, if the first concept is accepted, the policies will center 
in one position : '' Get the best talent possible " and satisfy 
the spectators. If the second concept is accepted, the desires 
of partisans and anxiety concerning questions of material for 
winning teams will be paramount in the development of ad- 
ministrative policies, always with an exaggeration of tenden- 
cies to evil. If the third concept is accepted, the only position 
that can be taken is : athletics are for the education of all 
youth, irrespective of athletic skill or ability to make pleasure 
for spectators, bring " honor " to a group, or satisfy the pride 
of partisans. This concept and its interpretation does not 
necessarily abohsh pleasure for the spectator, nor the possi- 
bilities of his education as a spectator, but it determines ab- 
solutely the primary point of view in the creation of adminis- 
trative policies and methods. It determines the relative 
amount of time that should be devoted to vigorous muscular 
activities as compared with other educational activities, the 



Athletics 723 

obligations of institutions to furnish opportunities for par- 
ticipation by all and instruction for all, the organization of 
activities to meet all needs and capacities and to conserve 
primarily the interests of the many, the attitude on violations 
of the law of classification, recruiting and uneducational 
methods of developing teams, the supervision of the conduct 
of athletes in games, in training quarters, and on trips, the 
character and number of games played, the character of in- 
structors and managers, the financial methods, the kind of 
training methods, such as training tables, trainers, and sup- 
plies, the attitude in inter-institutional relationships, etc. 

An effective control depends on public opinion and expert 
educational leadership. Effective leadership will be ham- 
pered by an unintelligent, careless, or vicious public opinion ; 
public opinion, even educationally the best, can be effective 
only through technical leadership. Educational athletics 
for all can be fully realized only when the public sees clearly 
the distinction between athletics as an educational force in 
the life of youth and athletics as an amusement for the public, 
until it respects athletics as an essential element in the educa- 
tion of youth, fosters a spirit of competitive play, and supports 
an educational administration. Public opinion will take this 
position only when educational leaders see and cultivate this 
viewpoint. Effective leadership requires technical skill, 
knowledge, authority, and character to secure the participa- 
tion of all and to avoid the evil tendencies. 

To secure effective participation an educational adminis- 
tration must do three things : (i) It must supply oppor- 
tunities in the form of equipment and activities that will meet 
the capacities, needs, and tastes of all. (2) It must supply 
for all instructors who are primarily interested in the education 
of youth, who are trained to recognize individual capacities, 
needs, and tastes, and who will give sympathetic leadership, 
encouragement, and stimulus, especially to the less fortunate, 
in the development of effective play habits. (3) It must 



724 Principles of Secondary Education 

supply an organization that is primarily concerned in con- 
serving the educational rights of youth in athletics, that will 
inspire respect, and that will maintain a fair classification for 
competition. 

To avoid the evil tendencies an educational administration 
must also supply three additional influences, (i) It must 
supply the technical knowledge and skill to give physical ex- 
aminations, supervise the amount and character of activities, 
and care for minor injuries, thus avoiding the tendencies to evils 
that destroy physical results. (2) It must supply a moral 
leadership with knowledge and skill and character-power 
sufficient to control bad manners and tendencies to violations 
of the rules of the games and all tendencies that destroy moral 
results. (3) It must supply a social leadership with educa- 
tional ideals, independent character, and honesty sufficient 
both to lead the earnest, honest, and reasonable spectators 
and io control or ignore the narrow or selfish partisan in all 
tendencies to violations of the law of classification, the edu- 
cational viewpoint, and the social status of athletics. 

All these requirements in an efficient educational leadership 
demand specialists trained as educators in the use of vigorous 
play activities as educational subject matter. 

ATHLETICS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. Stages of 
Development. — Athletics for high school boys seem to 
be passing through three distinct stages as regards the atti- 
tude of the school authorities : first, opposition ; second, tol- 
eration; third, cooperation. It is not many years since 
school authorities looked upon athletics as a positive evil, 
and not only refused to allow the schoolboys to take part, 
as representing the schools, but absolutely opposed such ac- 
tivities. After a time they began to reahze that boys were 
sure to engage in athletics, whether the school authorities 
gave their permission or not, and a period of toleration fol- 
lowed. The result was that teams competing under the 
school name frequently brought discredit upon the school 



Athletics 725 

and caused principals and teachers considerable annoyance. 
The difficulties were practically solved when the teachers 
took hold with the boys and helped to organize the sports 
and to provide the necessary accommodations. 

Organized Athletics. — The problem of control has been 
made difficult through neglect, but organized athletics in the 
elementary school are helping to improve the situation by de- 
veloping a proper spirit among the boys and bringing them 
to appreciate the necessity of rules of eligibihty and compe- 
tition. It is reasonable to hope that well-organized athletics 
in the elementary and high schools of the country will help 
solve the problems of athletic control in colleges and universi- 
ties. The cooperation of other athletic associations, as the 
Amateur Athletic Union, the Military Association, etc., is ab- 
solutely necessary in order to enable the school authorities to 
enforce their authority, and it is usually given. A few test 
cases bringing home to schoolboys the fact that they can have 
no standing in other clubs or associations unless they pre- 
serve their athletic standing in their school are sufficient to fix 
the authority of school officers. 

Rules of Eligibility. — The following rules of eligibility are 
taken from the handbook of the PubHc Schools Athletic 
League of New York City. 

No high school pupil shall represent his school unless he 
has attended a school for twenty school weeks, unless 

{a) He has been promoted from an elementary school, 
whereupon he shall be eligible immediately ; 

(&) He has been admitted from a school outside the New 
York public schools, whereupon he shall be eligible after an 
attendance of twenty school days. 

No high school pupil who has reached the age of twenty-one 
shall be eligible to represent his school in any branch of 
athletics. 

A boy shall be eligible to represent his school in athletics 
during any "marking" interval who has placed 14 hours 



726 Principles of Secondary Education 

(13 hours) of prepared work to his credit at the last rating in 
the office records. 

In those high schools where physical training is not con- 
ducted according to the syllabus 13 hours, instead of 14, shall 
be considered as constituting eligibility. 

Drawing and shopwork in manual training schools shall 
count one hour for two. 

Any extraordinary case shall be submitted to the High 
Schools Games Committee. 

A graduate of a three years' course in the high schools who 
returns to take up postgraduate work is permitted to take 
part in athletics, providing he is eligible according to the rules 
of the Public Schools Athletic League. 

No pupil who is a graduate of a four-year secondary school 
course shall be eligible to represent any school. 

Only those pupils who are taking full work in a regular course 
shall be eligible to represent the school. 

No pupil shall be allowed to compete in the mile run unless 
he has reached the age of sixteen years and six months. No 
pupil shall be allowed to compete in the junior events if he is 
sixteen years old or older. A birth certificate shall be ac- 
cepted as proof of a high school junior's age. If such certifi- 
cate cannot be secured, other evidence may be submitted to 
the High Schools Games Committee. 

Any boy who has matriculated in any college or who has 
played on a college team shall not be eligible to represent a 
high school. 

No entry shall be accepted unless countersigned by the 
principal or the school's representative on the High Schools 
Games Committee. 

Any high school pupil known to have bet or acted as an 
agent for others in betting on athletic contests shall be de- 
barred from competition for one year. ' 

Safeguards. — In the secondary schools the events are 
graded on a plan similar to that in the elementary schools, 
and a limit is placed upon the number of events in which a boy 
may enter. All boys taking part in the interschool competi- 
tions are required to present a certificate signed by a reliable 



Athletics 727 

physician stating that they are physically able to participate. 
Effort is made to ehminate from the list of events those that 
present any danger of serious injury to the participants. As 
an example of this, football under college rules has been dis- 
couraged by the League. In New York City soccer football 
is played as a substitute. The game of soccer is free from 
the dangers of mass plays and tackles, and offers an oppor- 
tunity for all boys to take part. The small boy has an equal 
chance with the larger fellows. In fact, he is frequently able 
to outplay his bulky opponent. 

Events. — ■ The generally accepted events for secondary 
schoolboys are: 100-yard dash, 220-yard run, 440-yard run, 
880-yard run, i-mile run, 100-yard hurdles, 120-yard hurdles, 
220-yard hurdles, half-mile and mile relays, running broad 
jump, running high jump, pole vaulting, putting 12-pound 
shot, discus throw, basketball, baseball, soccer football, cross- 
country running, tennis, swimming, skating, marksmanship. 

Summary of Values. — Among the objections that are 
raised against athletics for schoolboys are the following : 
overstrain, unfair tactics, too much pubHcity, and too much 
time and attention. On the other side there are positive 
advantages of well-organized athletics, such as the develop- 
ment of courage, decision, alertness, tenacity, resource, 
obedience, restraint, fairness, cooperation, self-sacrifice, and 
generalship. The outlook is exceedingly hopeful because the 
advantages so manifestly outweigh the disadvantages, and 
because under a well-organized system the evils may be 
practically eliminated. 

Summary of Effects upon the School. — The leading con- 
sideration in athletics for school children must always be that 
of the effects upon the school. In cities where this work has 
been organized and given a fair test, school authorities are 
practically unanimous that: (i) Class work is better. (2) The 
health of the school children is improved. (3) A wholesome 
school spirit is developed. (4) There is less trouble about 



728 Principles of Secondary Educatio7t 

discipline, owing to the closer relation and better understand- 
ing between the pupils and teachers. A district superintendent 
in the New York City schools recently declared at a public 
meeting that organized athletics had done more to break up 
truancy in his district than any other thing that had been 
tried. The following quotation from a letter written to the 
Secretary of the New York City League by a school principal 
is typical of the attitude of teachers, principals, and superin- 
tendents. " Permit me to add a word of commendation to 
the many you have received, for the excellent work your as- 
sociation is doing toward developing a love in our public 
schoolboys for clean athletics. These sports, I believe, im- 
prove our boys, not only physically, but also mentally and 
morally. This conclusion has been the result of my personal 
observations extending over about four years. I have known 
of many cases where boys who had previously been quite 
neglectful of both studies and conduct in their classes, showed 
marked improvement in both lines after entering into athletic 
contests. I have yet ibo find the boy who has done poorer 
work at school because of these sports. Many times the 
leaders in athletics have also been the leaders of their class 
in their studies." 

Athletic Courtesy. — One of the benefits of organized 
athletics for schoolboys is the opportunity that is afforded 
for practicing those manly virtues that mean so much for suc- 
cess in after life. One public school athletic league prints 
in its handbook the following standards, and emphasizes 
them to the boys as the ideal in athletic competitions : (i) The 
rules of games are to be regarded as mutual agreements, the 
spirit or letter of which one should no sooner try to evade or 
break than one would any other agreement between gentle- 
men. The stealing of advantage in sport is to be regarded 
in the same way as stealing of any other kind. (2) Visiting 
teams are to be honored guests of the home team, and all 
their mutual relationships are to be governed by the spirit 



Athletics 729 

which is understood to guide in such relationships. (3) No 
action is to be taken nor course of conduct pursued which 
would seem ungentlemanly or dishonorable if known to one's 
opponent or the pubHc. (4) No advantages are to be sought 
over others, except those in which the game is understood to 
show superiority. (5) Officers and opponents are to be re- 
garded and treated as honest in intention. When opponents 
are evidently not gentlemen, and officers manifestly dishonest 
or incompetent, future relationships with them may be avoided. 
(6) Decisions of officials are to be abided by, even when they 
seem unfair. (7) Ungentlemanly or unfair means are not to 
be used, even when they are used by opponents. (8) Good 
points in others should be appreciated and suitable recognition 
given. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What are the relative merits of athletics as compared with gym- 
nastics for physical education ? For moral education ? For social 
education? Which contributes most to the school? Study these in 
reference to particular schools. 

2. What is the best type of organization of athletics in schools or in 
a given school ? What are the merits and demerits of such plan of or- 
ganization, — individual groups, permanent associations, institutional 
groups, or interscholastic associations ? 

3. What are the dangers of professional athletics in our high schools ? 
In what forms does professionalism seek to come in ? 

4. To what extent should athletics for spectators be allowed to in- 
fluence ? 

5. What are the forms taken by this demand of the spectators or of the 
public ? 

6. In what ways is the influence of the alumni in athletics exerted 
in a given school ? Which of these influences are good ? Which bad ? 

7. What can American schools learn from English schools in the matter 
of athletics ? 

8. What are the evils of athletics as seen in any given school ? The 
benefits ? 

9. Through what stages of development have athletics passed in 
any given school ? What actual growth in principle is observable ? 



730 Principles of Secondary Educatio7t 

10. To what extent should cooperation with other athletic organiza- 
tions be permitted or encouraged ? 

11. How can school athletics be used to promote public manners as 
well as public morals ? 

REFERENCES 

General: 

Johnson, George E. Education by Plays and Games, with Bibliog- 
raphy. Boston, 1907. 

Leland, Arthur, and Lorna, H. Playground Technique and Playcraft, 
with Bibliography. Springfield, 1909. 

McCuRDY, J. H. Bibliography of Physical Training. See p. 9, group 
013, Philosophy : Relationships, which gives the best references up 
to 1905. Springfield, 1905. 

Mero, E. B. American Playgrounds, with Bibliography. Boston, 1908. 

Official Handbook of the Athletic League of the Young Men's Christian 
Association of North America. American Sports Publishing Co., 
New York. 

Official Handbook of the Public Schools Athletic League, published 
yearly since 1904. American Sports Publishing Co., New York. 

Official Handbook of Sunday School Athletic League of Brooklyn, New 
York. The Walden Press, 64 Fulton Street, New York. 

Playground Association of America. Proceedings of Annual Playground 
Congress, 1908, 1909. New York. 

Proceedings of the Athletic Research Society. American Physical 
Education Review, Vol. XV, Nos. 3 and 4. March and April, 1910. 

Proceedings of Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States. 
Published yearly since 1906. (These papers are the best on college 
athletics, and all are published in the American Physical Education 
Review.) 

Reports and Proceedings of Athletic League of Baltimore, 1909. 

Report of Committee on An Amateur Law. American Physical Edu- 
cation Review, Vol. XV, No. 3. March, 1910. 

Year Book of the Public Schools Athletic League of the City of New 
York. Published since 1905. 

Public School Athletics: ' 

Bishop, E. C. How Should the Athletics of the Y. M. C. A. supplement 
that of the Public School. Hygiene and Physical Education, Vol. I, 
No. 10, p. 880. Springfield, Mass. 
Cline, Earle. The AdvisabiHty of Inter-High School Contests in 



A thletics 7 3 1 

Athletics. Physical Education Review, Vol. XV, No. i, p. 22. Spring- 

j&eld, Mass. 
Handbooks of the Public Schools Athletic Leagues of Baltimore, Md., 

Buffalo, N. Y., Newark, N. J., New Orleans, La., New York, N. Y., 

Seattle, Wash. (These will be sent free on application.) 
Larned, C. W. Athletics from Historical and Educational Standpoint, 

Physical Education Review, Vol. XIV, No. i, p. i. Springfield, 

Mass. 
Meanwell, W. E. The Team Game Tournament. Hygiene and 

Physical Education, Vol. I, No. 9, p. 896. Springfield, Mass. 
Nichols, E. H. Competitive Athletics. Physical Education Review, 

Vol. XIV, No. 9, p. 589. Springfield, Mass. 
Report of the Committee on Athletics for Boys and Athletics for Girls 

of the Playground Association of America, i Madison Avenue, New 

York City. (Sent free on application.) 
Pamphlet on Public Schools Athletics. Department of Child Hygiene of 

the Russell Sage Foundation, i Madison Avenue, New York City. 

(Sent free on application.) 



CHAPTER XX 
SOCIAL ASPECTS OF HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION 

THE SOCIAL VIEWPOINT. — In the light of present 
knowledge it is evident that education, even in its most naive 
form, has always had a social bearing. The earliest groupings 
of persons for the sake of learning were in themselves social 
activities, and even though the intellectual or other gains thus 
made were desired entirely for individual ends they neverthe- 
less had consequences for society as a whole. But previous to 
the nineteenth century ^ the value of education other than that 
to the individual had little place in human thinking. With 
the perfection of the processes for dispersing knowledge, how- 
ever, there occurred a profound deepening of social self-con- 
sciousness. Society began to understand the secrets of its 
own development and to manipulate with a confidence never 
before possessed the various forces and conditions that deter- 
mine social progress. One of the most important manifesta- 
tions of its new ability took the form of self-government. 
Having been made possible by the spread of learning, it was 
inevitable that democracy should include the promotion and 
administration of education among its own obligations, to be 
fulfilled henceforth as a rigorous measure of self-preservation. 

The perpetuation of popular government is, however, only 
one phase of modern educational utility. Society looks to the 
school for richness and beauty of existence as well as for safety. 
The transference of accumulated knowledge to rising genera- 
tions; the cultivation of sensibility to, and proficiency in, 
the arts; preparation for economic life; protection against 

1 See Paul Monroe, Influence of the Growing Perception of Human Inter- 
relationship on Education, Proc. Am. Sociological Society, Vol. VII, p. 47. 

732 



Social Aspects of High School Education 733 

disease ; and the physical development of the species, — these 
constitute only a partial list of the services now being exacted, 
but they well illustrate the more obvious form of the social 
viewpoint — the school as an instrumentality of society. The 
changes, tendencies, and considerations which have arisen in 
public education in response to the demands of society have 
been called its external social aspects.^ 

INTERNAL VIEWPOINT. — Modern developments in so- 
cial psychology, anthropology, and the social sciences in gen- 
eral have greatly increased our knowledge of the laws governing 
the educative process. Intellectual growth, it has been dis- 
covered, is largely conditioned by the contacts of the individual 
with other individuals. In the approbation of the group lies a 
powerful incentive to achievements in learning. The micro- 
cosmic character of the school itself gives it capacities for train- 
ing which, if properly utilized, yield important cultural results. 
The innate tendencies on the part of the young to initiate 
social organization have been revealed as allies ready for em- 
ployment in the exercises preparatory to citizenship. Many 
generalizations of equal educational import have been formu- 
lated by sociology and genetic psychology during the last few 
decades. The modifications and problems which they have 
occasioned may be called the internal social aspects of educa- 
tion. 

Ever since the school became an agency of society it has 
changed with the changes in the objects it was designed to 
serve. These modifications have been multiplied, not only 
by the urgency of successive social needs, but also by the per- 
ception of the new educational ways of meeting them which 
have been revealed by social psychology and its allied sciences. 
So that to-day the school finds itself at the confluence of two 
streams of influence : the demand of an extraordinarily com- 
plex social situation and the suggestions emanating from a 
rich mass of scientific data. The phases of education they 
^ See Irving King, Social Aspects of Education. 



734 Principles of Secondary Education 

turn into view are vast in number, but for purposes of discus- 
sion they may be conveniently grouped under the following 
heads : (i) content of instruction, (2) methods, (3) organi- 
zation, and (4) supplementary, or extension, activities. 

CONTENT OF INSTRUCTION. — The social demand be- 
ing made upon the secondary curriculum, in obedience to 
which it is undergoing rapid modification, is that it shall con- 
tain material preparatory for all — not as in the past for a few 
— of the actual relations which its students will sustain in af- 
ter life. Thus to the traditional groundwork for professional 
careers are added the fundamentals of many other callings. 
Indeed, so strong has the demand for vocational education 
been that special schools giving a technical training in all the 
leading commercial and industrial occupations, including agri- 
culture, are now to be found in the secondary field, While in 
the general high school it is seldom that the academic course 
is not accompanied by courses in bookkeeping, stenography, 
manual training, and the domestic arts. 

Besides the insistence upon a vocational preparation, society 
is calling for a more adequate fitting of young people for the 
obligations of citizenship. Hence economics, civics, and 
socialized historical courses now find place in the most com- 
plete curricula. The importance to the community of good 
health has added emphasis to physiology and chemistry and 
helped to bring courses in physical training and personal 
hygiene into the body of secondary instruction. The vice- 
preventing and character-forming qualities of proper recrea- 
tion have made athletics a matter of conscious control by 
faculty and students, while the finer potentialities of well- 
used leisure are recognized in the elaboration of the fine arts 
courses and the requirement, increasingly made, that whatever 
is cultural in the curriculum shall be actually realizable in the 
student's probable future environment. 

Finally, as has been pointed out in Chapter I, society is now 
demanding for its own sake that secondary education be so 



Social Aspects of High School Education 735 

specialized and so adapted to personal variations that the 
particular aptitudes of individuals, whether for social leader- 
ship, economic production, or any other kind of human activity, 
shall through it reach the fullest development that is feasible 
within the limits of time and circumstance. 

SOCIALIZED METHODS. — With a growing emphasis 
upon an education " related to life "it is natural that its pro- 
cesses should more and more be surrounded with the same con- 
ditions as those which envelop the affairs for which the edu- 
cands are being prepared. Thus in the industrial courses there 
is a tendency to have the pupils make products having a com- 
mercial or real value under conditions as far as possible like 
those existing in the manufacturing world. Repairs are made 
on real school or home furniture. Plans are drawn for build- 
ings which are actually to be erected. Periodicals are printed 
which serve as bona fide mediums of intelligence ; designs are 
contrived which will ornament actual pages, book covers, or 
wall papers. Thus in all vocational courses there is a dispo- 
sition to take advantage of the stimulus which comes from a 
genuine need felt by the student and filled by the products of 
his own hands, a pedagogical situation that is much more ex- 
citing than that afforded by an artificial problem and an 
academic solution. 

In the teaching of science a similar relatedness to the 
students' familiar environment is obtained by basing the 
laboratory exercises upon analysis of everyday foods, the 
piping of city water, the disposal of sewage, or the home appli- 
cations of the electric current. In the domestic arts the pupils 
are more and more given the kind of equipment they will use 
in their homes and allowed to learn how to furnish and deco- 
rate a real suite instead of being drilled in formal prescriptions 
about a hypothetical one. The languages, ancient as well as 
modern, are early made the means of classroom communica- 
tion, and the niceties of the mother tongue are self-taught by 
literary societies and newspaper competitions. The rudiments 



736 Principles of Secondary Education 

of finance and the practice of thrift are naturally inculcated by 
student-managed banks having connections with solid outside 
institutions. Historical facts are dug out by self-governing 
groups using early documents, evaluating evidence, and re- 
incarnating the past situations with fresh lineaments drawn 
by their own imaginations. Civics, politics, social ethics, — 
these also are self-developed with the aid of newspaper and 
magazine accounts of current happenings in the students' 
own ward, municipality, or state, while practice in handling 
the new conclusions and applying the homemade standards, 
as well as a familiarity with governmental machinery, are ob- 
tained by means of miniature legislatures or congresses sitting 
in the high school auditorium. Reality is given to musical 
training by granting credit for orchestral work or niembership 
in the student band. These examples do not by any means 
exhaust the social aspects of modern pedagogy, but they illus- 
trate some of the more palpable methods of utilizing group 
stimuli and biological grooves in secondary educative processes. 

SOCIAL ELEMENT IN ORGANIZATION. — This comes 
primarily through the recognition by principal, teachers, and 
students that they constitute a social organization and that 
merely through membership and participation in its activities 
pupils derive a certain kind of training for the larger outside 
social relationships. If the consciousness of these social aspects 
have its logical effects, it will perceptibly modify the govern- 
ment of the school. Without surrendering his final authority 
the principal will give both the staff and the student body a 
share in the management of affairs and thus secure full loyalty 
and at the same time impart the important educational effects 
of self-government. Common expressions of this principle 
are observed in the various forms of student government, 
student management of athletics, and the honor system at the 
time of examinations. 

Another phase of this subject is disclosed in the constructive 
attitude now appearing in high school administration toward 



Social Aspects of High School Educalioii 737 

" student activities " and student organizations. It is per- 
ceived that through these spontaneous groupings pupils may 
receive a preparation for after Hfe of a kind which the school 
has not in the past given, but which is now more and more 
expected from it. A social training, in the more restricted 
sense, is a factor in success ; and the young person whose home 
life has not afforded it and who passes through the secondary 
school without receiving it, is seriously handicapped in his 
future endeavors. To meet this need principals and teachers 
are now devising methods whereby student societies may be 
directed, kept in their proper place, and all their legitimate 
usefulness may have the widest enjoyment. This policy goes to 
the extent in some quarters of giving credit towards gradua- 
tion requirements for exceptional proficiency in social leader- 
ship, student journalism, or the management of an organization. 

Concern for the pupil's future economic relationship has led 
to increasing attention to the subject of employment and vo- 
cational guidance. While the methods for performing the 
latter function have not been successfully formulated as yet, 
the school is feeling such a responsibility in the matter that it 
is now recognized as a genuine administrative problem. Em- 
ployment bureaus are found in many high schools. 

The new viewpoint in instruction has occasioned organization 
changes of a novel character. These are the connections exist- 
ing between certain schools and local industries, commercial 
societies, or municipal departments. Whether the activity is 
that of making products of market value, taking an industrial 
census, or protecting the city water supply, the object is the 
same, to subject the student to the powerful stimuli of the 
natural social environment. How far this tendency will go 
no one can prophesy, but that it is just now a very real one is 
indisputable. It has also the reenforcement of the vitalizing 
effect which is wrought upon the teacher's influence through 
his participation in the concrete activities of the outside 
world, 

3B 



73^ Principles of Secondary Education 

Another organic change is that which inevitably follows the 
principal's perception of his school as a social undertaking 
that is amenable to the dictates of public opinion. When he 
realizes that the financial support of his institution depends 
upon the taxpayer's approval, he begins to seek some certain 
means of retaining popular approbation. When he appre- 
ciates how easily the results of his efforts to mold the habits 
of his pupils can be offset by the hostile conditions outside of 
the school, he begins to plan for sympathetic cooperation 
between his institution and the home and the other construc- 
tive forces of the community. As a result more direct connec- 
tions are estabUshed between the high school and the adult 
members of its constituency. These frequently take the form 
of parent-teacher, fathers', or improvement associations. By 
means of them the school staff and the citizens are brought into 
immediate contact, and the interchange of ideas, sentiments, 
wishes, and plans between them is greatly facihtated. 

HIGH SCHOOL EXTENSION. — The activities under this 
head find their raison d'etre in two main sets of conditions : 
(a) the school's need, for the sake of the completest discharge of 
its primary function, of more direct connections with society, 
and (b) society'sneedofnewandlarger services from the school. 
The first of these has already been broached in the preceding 
section, and regarding it there remains to point out only the 
consideration that the opportunity for its full satisfaction is 
afforded in the discharge of the new responsibihties being laid 
upon the school by society. Thus the most effective way of 
justifying the huge expenditures of public funds now being 
made upon high school plants is to utilize them to their fullest 
possible capacity. To do that requires the bringing in of addi- 
tional groups of people to be benefited in some way by the 
school facilities. Keeping the school poHcy in harmony with 
pubhc sentiment can best be accomplished by allowing and 
stimulating popular utterances within school halls. The 
public can best be informed about school conditions by being 



Social Aspects of High School Education 739 

brought into the building where they can be seen. The 
school staff can be kept in vitalizing contact with social prob- 
lems by engaging directly in the enterprises that are set in 
motion to solve social difficulties ; and, finally, the school will 
experience less trouble in securing the cooperation of patrons 
in the carrying of school ideals, practices, and regulations into 
the pupils' homes if, in return, the school will facilitate through 
the loan of its assembly rooms and other resources the attain- 
ment of patrons' ends in the other phases of the community 
life. 

SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES DEMANDED BY SO- 
CIETY. — At the outset it may be said that in putting forth 
the following demands society's attitude is strongly reenforced 
by the consciousness of the vast investment represented by 
secondary school property and of its incomplete utilization 
when devoted solely to its primary function. In keeping with 
the prevalent inclination towards the conservation and eco- 
nomical exploitation of all its resources, society makes its 
growing demands with confidence, and the trend of present 
developments in the wider use of the high school buildings 
shows that it is not a mistaken feeling. These demands 
when classified upon the basis of their dominant effect fall into 
three classes : (i) moral, (2) cultural, and (3) civic. 

I. The comparatively recent discovery of the significance 
of leisure-time activities in the determination of character 
has been followed by a public movement to safeguard youth 
through a constructive surveillance over the periods of play 
and recreation. Translated into specific high school measures 
this means the appropriation by young people in general of 
the gymnasium for basket ball, folk and social dancing, calis- 
thenics, and other physical activities during the marginal 
periods of day and evening. In the same way the auditorium, 
with its stage, organ, curtain, and other appurtenances, is 
requisitioned for motion pictures, amateur theatricals, concerts, 
debates, and popular entertainments of all kinds. In this 



740 Principles of Secondary Education 

room, as well as other suitable quarters, choral societies, 
amateur orchestras and bands, social, literary, and debating 
societies, and social clubs of all sorts carry on their respective 
activities, while in the laboratories and other workshops those 
who find recreation through hobbies find means and oppor- 
tunities which are not available elsewhere. 

The inevitable result of any prolonged and systematic at- 
tempt to enrich people's recreations is a marked and wide 
stimulation of individual talent. Entertainments demand en- 
tertainers. Performances require performers. The keenest en- 
joyments known to human beings are always related to the 
activities of other human beings. Where the enchainment of 
the attention is desired, somebody's special abilities are always 
called into play. Accordingly it is quite understandable 
why dramatic, orchestral, and wind instrument performances 
find so large a place in recreational programs, why out of play- 
grounds and social centers play festivals and pageants are now 
proceeding, and why finally this aspect of the subject makes 
such a natural transition to the next topic, the cultural effects. 

2. The constant craving for knowledge of the best things 
which have been written, composed, or depicted, that is found 
in every community may be fed by the high school in a variety 
of ways. The most common is that of arranging popular 
lectures, readings, and concerts and by the provision of even- 
ing courses in literature, the foreign languages, and art appre- 
ciation. Some schools offer also the privileges of a public 
circulating library, but the most striking example of this kind 
of service is to be found in devotion of the lobby, corridors, or 
some specially designed space to the uses of an art gallery. 
In the instances already existing, loan collections, artists' ex- 
hibitions, the stored-away surplus of the local museum, and the 
treasures assembled by art societies have formed the material 
for undertakings which are as stimulative to the students as 
they are productive of enjoyment and cultivation for the 
community. ^Esthetic resources are also increased through 



Social Aspects of High School Education 741 

the encouragement involved in the letting of rooms for meet- 
ings or rehearsals to musical, literary, or art societies and or- 
ganizations. Not only the amateurs, but the professional 
performers and teachers, are benefited by every increase in 
the opportunities and occasions for attention to the things 
that delight the eye, the ear, and the spirit. 

3. The opportunities for aiding the civic life of a community 
that are open to the high school arise {a) partly from the 
manner in which our institutions are being modified, and 
(&) partly from the intellectual and spiritual needs of a people 
not all equally qualified for bearing the responsibilities of a 
democracy. 

[a) The alterations, improvements, recastings of municipal, 
state, and national machinery are usually made, in the first 
instance, by groups of specially interested individuals generi- 
cally called voluntary organizations. Bodies of this type not 
only devise the new perfections but also undertake to bring 
about their adoption, and oftentimes maintain the new ac- 
tivity, for demonstrative purposes, until society is ready to 
incorporate it in the regular governmental routine. The ex- 
istence, efforts, and efficiency of such organizations can usually 
be greatly furthered by the provision of quarters for meeting 
and working. This service high schools are increasingly per- 
forming for all sorts of welfare and improvement associations 
and institutions. 

{b) Ignorance of local civic affairs may be due to foreign 
birth or parentage. This defect high schools can aid in remedy- 
ing by offering courses in English, and by giving to foreigners 
in other ways knowledge of our customs, history, and insti- 
tutions. The dignity of American citizenship is being im- 
pressed upon newly naturalized immigrants in some schools 
by special occasions presided over by leading citizens and 
surrounded with suitable ceremonies. The familiarity with 
civic affairs which is usually so inadequate among the general- 
ity of people can be improved through the institution of ad- 



742 Principles of Secondary Education 

dresses and discussions by persons of prominence and authority 
upon topics of governmental import. 

Finally, the system of party-promoted political education, 
now subject to so many abuses, can be greatly elevated and 
renovated by bringing its occasions into the light and giving 
them a dignified setting. The use of school auditoriums for 
political rallies will also tend to lessen the need of campaign 
contributions and thus cut off some of their train of evils. 
But more important still, the recognition of this function as 
an educational responsibility will hasten the time when civic 
intelligence will be publicly inculcated and not longer be sub- 
ject to the subversions and distortions incidental to promotion 
at the hands of selfish and mercenarily biased factions. 

In conclusion, the consciousness of social needs and social 
processes in the direction of secondary education means its 
approximation in content and method to the life for which it 
endeavors to prepare its students. Complete identification 
with life would be a disaster. But getting the full strength 
of its vital forces behind the ideals brought down from above 
will bring a wonderful quickening. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. Enumerate the purely individual aspects of elementary public 
school instruction. Of secondary education. 

2. Contrast expressions of the social motive in early American educa- 
tion laws with those to be found in the recent enactments of Wisconsin, 
New York, and other states. 

3. Make a complete list of the social demands upon public education 
and distinguish those which apply respectively to elementary and to 
high schools. 

4. Describe briefly the teaching process as it existed among two 
primitive peoples. 

5. State all of the disadvantages you would experience if you under- 
took to acquire the equivalent of a high school education by yourself; 
that is, without attending school or having tutors. 

6. Rank the various subjects in your curriculum in the order of 
their importance as preparations for citizenship. 



Social Aspects of High School Education 743 

7. Differentiate by means of illustrations the typical learning pro- 
cesses of the classroom and of daily life outside the school. 

8. Which do you find more enjoyable, writing an essay that is re- 
quired in the English course, or a letter of equal length to a friend ? 
Analyze the reasons for your preference. 

9. What occasions outside of those connected with the school and 
the civil service are most similar — in character, not significance — to 
term examinations ? 

10. In the case of which subjects in your curriculum could the in- 
struction be organized upon a more cooperative, democratic basis ? 
Which not ? Give reasons. 

11. Characterize the form of government in the usual classroom. 
What changes would need to take place to make it democratic ? 

12. Expound the relation of recreation to morality. 

13. Give the reasons for holding political discussions in public school 
buildings. 

14. What is community art ? 

15. How far does the education law of your state authorize school 
boards to undertake the various extension activities outlined in the 
foregoing chapter ? 

REFERENCES 

Bloomfield, Meyer. The Vocational Guidance of Youth. Boston, igi i . 
BooNEj R. G. Manual Training as a Socializing Factor. Education, 

22: 395. 
Denison, Elsa. Helping School Children. New York, 191 2. 
Dewey, John. School and Society. Chicago, 1899. 

The School as a Social Center. Elementary School Teacher, 3 : 73. 
DuTTON, S. T., and Snedden, D. Administration of Public Education 

in the United States. New York, 1908. 
Ellwood, C. a. Sociology and Modern Social Problems. Chap. XV 

of Edtication and Social Progress. New York, 1910. 
Grice, Mary V. Home and School. Philadelphia, 1909. 
GuLiCK, Luther H. Popular Recreation and Public MoraUty. Annals 

of American Academy of Political and Social Science, July, 1909. 
Jenks, Jeremiah. Citizenship and the Schools. New York, igo6. 
Johnston, Charles H, and others. High School Education. New 

York, 1912. 
The Modern High School. New York, 19 14. 
King, Irving. Education for Social Efficiency. New York, 19 13. 

Social Aspects of Education. New York, 1913. 
Lee, Joseph. Play as a School of the Citizen. Charities, 18: 486-491. 



744 Principles of Secondary Education 

Monroe, Paul. Influence of the Growing Perception of Human Inter- 
relationship on Education. American Journal of Sociology, March, 
1913, p. 622. 

MowRY, D. Use of Schoolhouses for Other than School Purposes. Edu- 
cation, 29 : 92. 

Perry, Clarence A. School as a Social Center, in Cyclopedia of Edu- 
cation, Paul Monroe, ed. New York, 19 14. 
Wider Use of the School Plant. New York, 1910. 

Scott, C. A. Social Education. Boston, 1908. 

Students' Aid Committee of the High School Teachers' Association of 
New York City, E. W. Weaver, Chairman. Choosing a Career, 
and other vocational bulletins. 1909. 

Tenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. 
Part I, "The City School as a Community Center"; Part II, 
"The Rural School as a Community Center." Edited by the Sec- 
retary, S. Chester Parker, University of Chicago. 191 1. 

Ward, E. J. Rochester Social Centers. The Playground Association 
Proceedings, 3 : 387-395, 1910. 

Ward, E. J., and others. The Social Center. New York, 1913. 

Pamphlets of Department of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation, 
New York. 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 

THE FORCES PRODUCING THE PRESENT REORGAN- 
IZATION IN EDUCATION. — The educational systems of 
all civilized countries are at present in a state of profound 
disturbance and transition. As a consequence of the eco- 
nomic and social developments of recent decades, the demands 
upon education have multiplied and grown more diversified. 
Increasing knowledge of the fundamental principles of social 
economy on the one hand and of individual human psychol-. 
ogy on the other have had the effect of revealing to us the 
inadequacy of the aims which now control in education, as 
well as the uncertain and arbitrary character of the methods 
usually employed in instructing and training young people. 

These changes are, in the last analysis, due to two funda- 
mental causes. The first is the modern political or social 
demand for universal education as a necessary means in a 
democratic society. The second is the increasing effort among 
leaders to found educational practice, so far as may be, on bases 
of scientific knowledge, rather than on tradition or on practices 
which have grown to be customary. To the first cause are 
due the demands for free elementary and higher education; 
for compulsory school attendance ; and for diversification of 
educational opportunities to fit the differing needs of the 
various groups of young people, for all of whom society pur- 
poses to secure a fair and generous start in life. To the second 
cause are due modern efforts to enrich educational programs ; 
to ascertain the actual values of the historic subjects and of 
the methods of study and teaching which have become tradi- 
tional in schools ; to study experimentally the learning pro- 

745 



746 Principles of Secondary Education 

cesses of children and adolescent youth; and to scrutinize 
the fields of modern social economy with a view to ascertaining 
what are actually the valid aims of an education which should 
be purposefully directed towards the attainment of such valu- 
able ends as those embraced under the broader conceptions 
of physical efficiency, vocational power, good citizenship, and 
broad personal culture. 

THE REORGANIZATION ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED 
IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. — Within the field of sec- 
ondary education many important changes in practice and 
theory have been effected, and others of even greater impor- 
tance seem to be impending. High schools of general or 
liberal education have been so widely established as now to 
be accessible without fee almost everywhere in America. 
Attendance on these schools has increased during recent dec- 
ades at a rate several times greater than that of population. 
Programs of instruction have become more flexible. A few 
of the historic subjects of study have been reshaped so as to 
become less formal and perhaps more adapted to contem- 
porary needs. The general conviction has arisen, and has 
been widely accepted, that the workshop and other commer- 
cial agencies no longer give satisfactory vocational training. 
It may well become a legitimate function of special sec- 
ondary schools to insure, at least in part, opportunities for 
specialized vocational teaching. In a number of respects, 
educational dogmas and traditions hitherto influential in the 
field of the general theory of secondary education seem to be 
giving way. There is a growing tendency to demand a more 
scientific analysis of purposes and methods in secondary 
schools. 

THE REORGANIZATION TO BE ACCOMPLISHED. — 
In the main, however, the changes which have already taken 
place in the theory and practice of secondary education have 
been due to a growing public demand for the provision of more 
accessible and more varied educational opportunities. Sec- 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 747 

ondary schools as yet exhibit relatively few modifications of 
practice due to current demands for, and tendencies toward' 
more scientific educational theory and methods based upon 
scientific principles. It is not surprising that this should be 
so. The two sciences upon which, in the last analysis, scien- 
tific educational practice must be based — namely, sociology 
and psychology — are as yet in only the very early stages of 
sound development. It is from sociology and its concrete 
applications in social economy that we must eventually de- 
rive our conscious educational aims ; and it is upon a well-de- 
veloped knowledge of psychology that we must ultimately rely 
for the foundations of method — a term which, as here used, 
includes not only the actual methods of giving instruction and 
training, but also the ways and means of organizing the 
materials wherewith to realize educational aims. 

In the meantime, in addition to administrative changes, 
a great variety of more or less fragmentary empirical studies 
are in progress whereby the needs of society and the individual 
are being ascertained, with a view to at least a clearer defini- 
tion of educational aims than now prevails. On the other 
hand, experimental work is being done in the direction of dis- 
covering more effective methods of teaching. In consequence, 
some of the traditions of secondary education are being under- 
mined and much conscious effort is being given to more scien- 
tific formulation of purposes, ways, and means. 

UNIFORMITY IN EXISTING AIMS AND PRACTICES. 
— The controlling aims and the prevalent practices of Ameri- 
can secondary education, as that has been and still largely is 
organized, are capable of comparatively simple description, 
notwithstanding the enormous recent increase in the number 
of secondary schools. A very great degree of uniformity in 
training of teachers, textbooks used, organization of classes, 
methods of instruction followed, and standards to be met, 
will be found in public high schools from Maine to California 
and from the northern to the southern boundaries of the 



748 Principles of Secojidary Education 

nation. This uniformity is due largely to the fact that the 
customs and traditions which had become established when 
public high schools first came into existence have continued 
in great measure unchanged to the present day. The agency 
most immediately responsible for this has been the American 
college. In the college the large majority of high school 
teachers have been trained. College men have written the ma- 
jority of texts, and have constituted the controlling influence 
in committees organized to make special reports dealing with 
particular phases of secondary school work. The colleges 
have-, through their admission examinations or system of cer- 
tification, indicated quite definite goals to be reached, espe- 
cially in those forms of organized knowledge and skill which 
written examinations can test. But, in fact, the so-called 
"dominance of the college" has persisted mainly because 
educators, whether as superintendents or as teachers and prin- 
cipals of secondary schools, have not been disposed or have 
not been free to discover and formulate more serviceable ends 
and means than those which they found already fixed in cus- 
tom and which the college continued to reflect. 

We find, therefore, that in nearly all public and private 
secondary schools in America the direct and controlling 
purpose is to teach, according to certain accepted methods, 
historic academic subjects — of which Latin, Greek, German, 
French, algebra, plane geometry, various phases of history, 
English, physics, and chemistry are the more prominent. 
The content actually taught within each subject, as well as 
the methods employed in instruction and training, have been 
slowly developed through the imperfectly analyzed and tested 
experience of many decades, or even centuries. In practice, 
the " mastery " of these subjects constitutes the controlling 
aim of all instruction — the mastery, that is, as measured 
by currently approved tests, such as college admission ex- 
aminations, the standards of college instructors assigned to 
inspect secondary schools, etc. 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 749 

It is alleged, to be sure, with great frequency and insistence, 
that other and more fundamental aims in reality control in 
secondary academic education. These are variously described 
by such general and vague terms as " mental training," 
" general culture," " formation of character," " development 
of the historic sense," " mastery of scientific method," " im- 
provement of ability to use English," " development of think- 
ing powers," etc. There is, however, no conclusive evidence 
that these aims have, in any conscious way, affected either 
the choice of the material constituting the course of study in 
each subject, or the methods actually employed in giving 
instruction in it. What is clear to almost every teacher and 
supervisor is that ■ the intellectual standards of attainment 
defined in examination papers, textbooks, and manuals actually 
serve as indicating aims to be realized and therefore control 
the formulation of methods of instruction. 

RECENT SPECIALIZATION IN HIGH SCHOOLS.— 
Besides high schools devoted primarily to the giving of so- 
called " academic education," we find in recent years, espe- 
cially in large centers of population, the development of 
special high schools, or of non-academic departments within 
general high schools. These have come into existence pri- 
marily in response to a public demand for forms of second- 
ary education reflecting more positively the practical or 
vocational activities of contemporary life. In practice, the 
schools or departments thus formed — including not only 
technical or manual arts high schools, but also commercial 
departments and schools, agricultural schools, etc. — do not 
actually realize vocational ends except in rare instances. 
They constitute essentially a new and modern form of gen- 
eral secondary education. The vocational purpose, as judged 
by the means and methods adopted, is incidental. Their 
methods of instruction are usually patterned closely after 
those of general high schools. 

Some vocational secondary day schools are now to be 



750 Prmciples of Secondary Edttcation 

found, both in the industrial and in the commercial field. A 
very few vocational schools of agriculture and of home mak- 
ing also exist. So few in the aggregate, however, are these 
vocational schools that one must recognize them as constitut- 
ing the beginnings of the realization of a new demand, rather 
than in any large measure the satisfaction of that demand. 

FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR FURTHER ADVANCE 
IN THE REORGANIZATION OF AIMS. — In all second- 
ary schools the greatest single necessity and opportunity for 
reorganization during the next generation will be found in 
such a formulation and statement of valid aims as will enable 
these schools to direct their energies more purposefully than 
hitherto towards the attainment of ends that are demon- 
strably worth while, and to discover and define the methods 
by which these aims can be most effectively realized. It 
should be clear that no scientific educational program can 
be based permanently upon the mere mastery of certain sub- 
jects of study. Such mastery must be regarded, not as an 
end in itself, but only as a means to other and more fun- 
damental ends, which should gradually become capable of 
examination, definition, and evaluation. 

The probable futility of much of contemporary secondary 
education is undoubtedly due to the fact that teachers in 
secondary schools, and to a large extent those who direct 
these teachers, have accepted as definite and working goals 
the memorization or other specific form of mastery of certain 
bodies of highly organized knowledge, as shown in the ability 
to pass prescribed examinations. When these teachers are 
asked to explain why it is desirable that the subjects or phases 
of subjects in which they train their pupils are preferable to 
other work that might be done, they fall back upon certain 
ancient vague and general platitudes as to the disciplinary 
value of studies, the value of the study as a tool in further 
investigation or study, or the contribution of the study to 
character formation. 



The Reorganization of Secondary Edttcation 751 

For example, in almost all academic high schools the study 
of Latin has gradually assumed a fairly definite form. The 
grammar, text, and composition to be mastered are quite 
clearly indicated in college entrance requirements, textbooks, 
committee reports, and the like. The annual examinations 
in this subject, or the standards of accrediting authorities, 
serve to indicate to the teacher quite definitely the degree 
of proficiency which the pupil is expected to attain. The 
goals which determine the teacher's activities are, therefore, 
to be expressed in terms of the mastery of this clearly defined 
body of Latin. When the educational desirability of Latin is 
questioned, the teacher, shocked by the impertinence or the 
ignorance shown by the query, falls back upon vague general- 
izations about the use of such a study as a means of training 
the mind, or giving increased capacity to use the mother 
tongue, or opening the doors to richer conceptions of the 
sources and developments of civilization. But it is now 
becoming clear that all of these generalizations express only 
hopes and faiths. They do not in any positive way shape 
the methods employed in teaching Latin and never have done 
so ; nor has any demonstration been made of the extent to 
which the study as now pursued actually contributes to their 
present realization. 

Another example can be found in the study of algebra and 
plane geometry. Even when Latin, in many schools, was 
placed upon an elective basis, these branches of mathematical 
study continued to be universally prescribed. It is excep- 
tional to find a high school from which pupils are permitted 
to graduate without having passed in these two subjects. 
It is still more exceptional to find colleges admitting students 
to degree courses unless such students have met certain re- 
quirements in algebra and geometry. The content of these 
subjects has been, for many years, quite definitely outlined. 
In textbooks, college entrance requirements, and the reports 
of committees the material which is expected to constitute 



752 Principles of Secondary Education 

these studies will be found mapped out, often in great detail ; 
and here, again, the standards of attainment are indicated 
with considerable precision in entrance examinations and 
the requirements of accrediting authorities. Only rarely 
are teachers called upon to prove the value of these studies, 
so universally have educators and citizens been induced to 
accept, without questioning, their validity for educational 
purposes. The aims of the teachers of these subjects are, 
therefore, quite definite ; but obviously, these aims cannot 
be described as ultimate, in any true sense. Here, too, when 
inquiry is pressed, educators generally fall back upon easy 
generalizations as to the value of these subjects in mental 
training, as instruments required in further study, etc. — 
ends which have actually never been worked over and estab- 
lished in any scientific manner. 

Similar illustrations may be found in almost all of the so- 
called " academic " and even in the vocational subjects now 
taught in secondary schools. What are the actual ends which 
do control, as contrasted with those which should control, in 
the teaching of physics, chemistry, and biology? Is there 
any evidence that the study of history as now pursued in 
secondary schools contributes in any important degree to 
genuine educational ends? In American high schools we 
expend vast sums in the teaching of French and German; 
what are the results? What objects have we actually in 
view in teaching these modern languages ? Are these objects 
realized, and to what degree? What modifications of aim 
are necessary if we are to find aims which are worth while 
and which are capable of being realized with the resources 
at our disposal? These and hundreds of similar questions 
are to be very carefully analyzed in the near future, as the 
demand for efficient education becomes more insistent and 
educators assume a more scientific spirit toward the problems 
involved. 

But at the outset one fundamental fact must be accepted : 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 753 

namely, that a formulation of the ends of secondary education 
merely in terms of the mastery of subject matter cannot be 
long held as an efficient basis for the making of programs and 
the devising of educational methods. Furthermore, we must 
view with skepticism all attempts to formulate educational 
aims in terms of vague statements expressive of social worths. 
These are not only misleading, but they serve no useful pur- 
pose in indicating the means and methods by which they are 
to be realized. Such generalizations nearly always, of course, 
indicate ends that are worth while ; but they serve no more 
useful purpose than would the general assertion that it is the 
business of human beings to strive for health, without indicat- 
ing any of the means by which disease may be remedied and 
various forms of health and strength conserved. 

REORGANIZATION IN METHODS OF TEACHING 
AND OF PROCEDURE. — In the reorganized secondary 
education of the future, the general principles upon which 
teaching practice will be based may be expected to differ 
greatly from those which have now become customary. So 
long as methods of teaching are developed more or less un- 
consciously, it is unavoidable that certain practices should 
early become stereotyped, and should long continue with the 
effect of excluding experimental work in the direction of^ 
newer and better methods. For example, .until recent years 
verbal memorization as the chief method and test of learn- 
ing prevailed, almost to the exclusion of every other form. 
More recently there has been substituted for verbal memori- 
zation, drill in question and answer, looking to the analysis 
and statement of facts as verbally presented in textbooks. 
There is no insistence that the student shall use the words 
of the text, but there is constant expectation that he shall 
describe the facts substantially as presented in the text. 
Under these conditions, the use of the constructive imagi- 
nation and an inductive approach to knowledge become 
practically impossible. In a few subjects, the so-called 
3C 



754 Principles of Secondary Education 

" topical method " has gained vogue, while in science teach- 
ing the introduction of laboratory work has resulted in still 
another type of method of teaching and study which has now 
become almost stereotyped. 

But methods of systematic teaching and learning are still 
unscientific, and tend to assume the rigidity of all practices 
resting mainly upon custom and belief. In the pedagogy of 
secondary education as thus far organized, there is as yet 
little recognition of the value and the possibilities of informal 
or so-called " natural " learning. 

Owing to the character of the aims and tests now prevailing, 
methods of teaching are, as stated above, almost invariably 
shaped to produce the particular results in mastery of organized 
knowledge which are demanded and which will show in writ- 
ten examinations. This produces, for example, the curious 
anomaly which we find in the teaching of English literature. 
It will be readily agreed that the most satisfactory definition 
we can give of what should be the valid purposes of the second- 
ary school in the teaching of literature is appreciation of the 
best writings. The methods now employed, however, are 
such as to put a premium, not upon appreciation, but upon 
intellectual mastery, usually in the form of memorization of 
innumerable details, coupled with some ability to analyze 
texts and to make .approved deductions. 

But in a reorganized secondary education, suited to an 
age of science, conscious and purposeful method must ulti- 
mately be worked out experimentally in the light of clearly 
defined aims. The few present and imperfect examples of 
this are to be found in our systematic attempts to prepare 
students for examinations, in the teaching of modern languages, 
and in the teaching of written composition. In these cases, 
aims, whether valid or not in the better sense, tend to be- 
come somewhat clear, and experimental work to find the 
best methods of realizing them has, in a measure, developed. 

But in such subjects as science, history, literature, mathe- 



T/ie Reorganization of Secondary Education 755 

matics, the classical languages, and some of the so-called 
" practical subjects," where as yet no clearly defined aims 
exist, it is still impracticable to develop method experimentally. 
We possess no standards of attainment either in quality or 
in degree. 

EXISTING NEED FOR REORGANIZATION CAN BE 
UNDERSTOOD ONLY THROUGH A STUDY OF THE 
EVOLUTION OF EXISTING PRACTICES. —To under- 
stand secondary education as it is now organized, we must 
examine the various stages of its evolution. Its present 
aims, content, and practices have been necessarily developed 
in prescientific stages. Most of the subjects of study now 
found represented at one time ends valuable in themselves. 
Learners sought teachers in these fields, and men undertook 
the teaching of these subjects as a profession. Gradually, 
bodies of organized knowledge were shaped. We know, of 
course, that Latin and Greek were eagerly studied at one 
time by persons needing to use them as tools, or for the pur- 
pose of gratifying higher forms of intellectual curiosity. The 
commoner branches of mathematics were introduced into 
secondary schools largely as fundamental means of preparing 
for certain occupations. During the nineteenth century 
the widespread interest in science had the effect of inducing 
many persons to seek, in the various branches of physical and 
biological science, either means of gratifying other intellectual 
interest or instruments that might be used vocationally. 

What a few first needed, demanded, and prized, finally 
became through imitation the demand of the many. Second- 
ary schools found, in these subjects, knowledge well organized 
for teaching purposes, and the means of holding students to 
definite tasks. In time, the subjects thus established became 
ends in themselves, even long after their intrinsic value had 
disappeared. This process of evolution has given us in large 
measure, not only the organized subjects as they now stand, 
but also the well-established methods of teaching them. 



756 Principles of Secondary Education 

CHARACTER OF PROSPECTIVE REORGANIZATION.— 
It is probable that such reorganization of secondary education 
as will take place during the next quarter of a century will be 
effected in part by modifications and new adaptations of exist- 
ing subjects, and in part by the development and formulation 
of new subjects of study and training, perhaps under names 
not widely used now. Obviously, the most rational way to 
reorganize secondary education would be to investigate and 
define, as far as practicable, the fundamental needs of con- 
temporary society and of individuals in that society, and 
then so to analyze these needs as to discover by what means 
and methods and to what extent they can be reasonably 
satisfied through educational activities in schools. An analy- 
sis of objectives of this character would give us a basis whereon 
we could develop experiments with a view to discovering the 
best methods of teaching. The field for such an analytical 
study is the larger social economy of the day, coupled with 
the needs and possibilities of individual development, and 
finally the actual and potential educational accomplishments 
of other agencies than schools. In this way could be estab- 
lished finally the specific functions which it should be the 
obligation of the schools to undertake, and which it should 
be within their means to carry out. 

A complete analysis of the kind here suggested must be 
the work of many years. Nevertheless, even within the 
present field of organized experience and with the rapidly 
increasing scientific knowledge of society, it should be possible 
to devise in large measure a series of educational aims or ends, 
which can be made the basis of further study and experimental 
work. To this end, the analysis given below is submitted as 
a tentative contribution. 

AGENCIES OR INSTITUTIONS CONTRIBUTING TO 
EDUCATION. — For the purposes of this analysis we may 
consider the rounded individual whom it is the ultimate aim 
of society to produce, as manifesting the effects of three 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 757 

different sets of influences — namely, those due to heredity, 
those due to nurture (food, shelter, play, etc.), and those 
due to education (education being here limited to the more 
or less conscious control by individuals and social agencies 
of the formation of habits, appreciation, sentiments, knowl- 
edge, and ideals). 

Education as a means of contributing to the development 
of the completed individual is effected through many agencies 
of a more or less purposeful nature. Among these the home, 
the school, and the church are the most immediately con- 
spicuous. There should be included, also, the workshop 
(meaning thereby any place where young people are em- 
ployed in systematic productive activities), the club, the play- 
ground, the press, the stage, the library, the police power, and 
others less clearly differentiated and perhaps less influential. 

The relative capacity of the foregoing educational agencies 
to perform specific and effective educational functions will 
vary greatly from age to age. The school itself, as well as 
the library, the police power, the church, the press, and the 
stage, are later differentiations' from the household and larger 
group activities of earlier times. Vocational education, so 
far as the vast majority of occupations are concerned, has 
always been obtained under the conditions of the workshop. 
Nevertheless, w^e find that vocational schools were established 
even centuries ago, to give vocational training in such fields as 
medicine, law, theology, and war leadership. For these call- 
ings the apprenticeship methods previously employed had 
proved inadequate. More recently, schools have been or- 
ganized for certain of the commercial callings, and in a few 
instances for agriculture, and for a few of the trades. The 
establishment of vocational schools has resulted from a grow- 
ing recognition of the fact that in many occupational fields 
the right kind of vocational training, if it is to be had at all, 
can be obtained only by creating and setting apart special 
educational agencies for these purposes. 



758 Pri7iciples of Secondary Education 

Again, we find that the church as an agency of moral 
education fails to reach a considerable element in the com- 
munity. There is a tendency to demand that schools under- 
take to make up for the deficiency. There is now a dis- 
position to bring the police power, through the juvenile court 
and the reform school, into close relationship with systematic 
school education. The library and the school are coming 
nearer together. There are prospects that stage and press, 
as educational agencies, will also be influenced by cooperation 
with schools. Everywhere we find a tendency to enlarge the 
functions of the school as a specialized educational agency, 
notwithstanding the fact that to some extent the other 
agencies, such as the library, the police power, the play- 
ground, and the club are also increasing in educational 
efficiency. 

Each of these educational agencies contributes in a special 
way to final and complete forms of efficiency. The home is 
concerned fundamentally with the formation of moral habits, 
and with such primitive cultural factors as the acquisition of 
vernacular speech, the inheritance of family customs and 
traditions, etc. The church undertakes primarily to effect 
the formation of moral ideals and to insure social intelligence 
in certain quite definite directions. The function of the 
workshop is found primarily in connection with vocational 
education. Each one of these agencies may, therefore, be 
analyzed from the standpoint of its actual or potential con- 
tribution to a rounded and complete education. 

THE SCHOOL AS THE SPECIAL AGENCY OF 
EDUCATION. — Because the school is a specialized and 
derivative institution, it is evident that we may continue 
this process of analysis to the point where, the possibiHties 
of the other educational agencies having been defined, the 
essential function of schools in the educational process can 
be stated and measured. This may properly be described 
as a residual function. Historically and pohtically it is cor- 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 759 

rect to look upon the school as a special agency created pri- 
marily by society for the performance of those educational 
functions which society needs under existing conditions, and 
which other less specialized educational agencies cannot 
easily, economically, or effectively perform. 

CLASSIFICATION OF THE AIMS AND PROCESSES 
OF EDUCATION AS DETERMINING ITS REORGAN- 
IZATION. — The process of analyzing educational aims and 
possibilities may be carried further in the direction of or- 
ganizing into categories the results which education is ex- 
pected to accomplish. In the light of present knowledge, 
the four principal categories may be described under the 
heads of physical education, vocational education, social edu- 
cation, and cultural education. Physical education is here 
defined as any form of education whose primary and con- 
trolling purpose is to establish those habits, to impart that 
knowledge, and to inculcate the ideals, which make for pro- 
longed physical efficiency. Vocational education is defined 
as any form of education whose primary and controlling pur- 
pose is to fit youths for specific occupations whereby men 
support themselves in the world of contemporary economic 
activity. Social education is here defined as any form of 
education the primary and controlling purpose of which is to 
affect group activities in accordance with the demands of 
modern civilized society. Social education includes moral, 
ethical, political, and a large part of religious education. It 
is directed toward the formation of the habits, the develop- 
ment of the appreciations, the imparting of the knowledge, 
and the formation of the ideals that underlie effective partici- 
pation in group activities, such as those of the home, the state, 
and society generally. Cultural education is defined as any 
form of education whose primary and controlling purpose is 
to develop in the individual intellectual and aesthetic apprecia- 
tions, tastes, ideals, and interests that make for the refine- 
ment of manners and the aesthetic and intellectual develop- 



760 Principles of Secondary Education 

merit which are comprised under the general term " personal 
culture." 

From the point of view of this analysis, it is also obvious 
that the various agencies of education described above differ 
as regards the departments of education in which their best 
results are achieved. For example, we think of the church 
as being primarily concerned with socal education, the work- 
shop with vocational education, the home and the playground 
with physical education, the library, the press, and the stage 
with cultural education, etc. 

In order, however, to discover goals which shall be of use 
in framing programs of school education, it is expedient that 
we continue the process of analysis further, with a view to 
defining various social utilities {i.e. ends that are socially 
worth while) in a sufficiently concrete and definite form to 
make possible the use of such clearly perceived goals as guides 
in the development of educational methods. The following 
are tentative proposals to this end. 

Physical Education. — The ends or objects of physical 
education, for example, may in part be analyzed into the 
specific procedures which shall result in : i. The formation 
of various groups of personal habits which have demonstrated 
value in efficient physical well-being. 2. Clearly defined 
knowledge of certain established principles and practices of 
hygiene, the possession of which, under ordinary circum- 
stances, will enable the individual to secure healthful living, 
and to withstand unhygienic conditions and influences. 
These ends may be further subdivided and treated under 
such specific heads as " hygiene of nutrition," " hygiene of 
organs of sight," " hygiene of the teeth," " prevention of 
bacterial infection," etc. 3. The establishment, by proper 
educational processes, of ideals of physical well-being. Non- 
school agencies such as the Boy Scout movement are even 
now making suggestive and important contributions in this 
direction. Athletics and gymnastics, properly inspired and 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 761 

conducted, also have important bearings on the formation of 
ideals of physical well-being. 4. The physical development, 
through specific training, of malformed or unformed organs, 
or the promotion of functional activities by suitable educa- 
tional exercises. Many of the valid special aims of physical 
education are already fairly well defined in the best of current 
practice both in private and in public schools. 

Vocational Education. — In the field of vocational edu- 
cation, it is only within the last few years that there have 
been organized schools designed to reach the rank and file of 
our workers and to train for the non-professional occupations. 
For many centuries, a few select schools have existed for those 
entering the so-called " professions." It is now apparent that 
apprenticeship and the other means of so-called " shop train- 
ing" for vocation have diminished greatly in their efficacy 
as agencies of vocational training. Intelligent workers in all 
phases of social economy now realize that it is indispensable 
for society to undertake, in a systematic way in schools, the 
vocational education of those to whom skill and technical 
knowledge will be necessary assets in their future callings. 

The specific objectives, or utilities, to be realized through 
vocational education must, of course, be as numerous and 
varied as are the specialized occupations which men and 
women enter under present conditions. It is now generally 
recognized that there can be no such thing as general voca- 
tional education. The only true vocational education is that 
which bases its aims and practices upon the recognized needs of 
some definite calling, or group of very closely related calHngs. 
To this end, we can classify occupations, although not com- 
pletely, under such general heads as: the professions; the 
agricultural callings ; the commercial callings ; the industrial 
callings ; the household arts callings ; and the nautical call- 
ings. Within each of these fields it is possible to differentiate 
many occupations for which specific training in schools may 
now be given. 



762 Principles of Secondary Education 

Expert opinion is inclining strongly to the view that suc- 
cessful vocational education will require as a condition of its 
efficiency in most fields, and more particularly in those fol- 
lowed by the rank and hie of workers, a large degree of con- 
centration in the actual practice of the activities characteristic 
of the calling towards proficiency in which pupils are being 
trained. The so-called related technical education and 
whatever other training may be designed to give vocational 
insight must be effected largely upon foundations of habits, 
knowledge, and ideals already established through actual 
practice of the more vital phases of the occupation itself. 
It is for this reason that so many educators are now turning 
towards employers and others in charge of industrial activities 
with a view to procuring their cooperation in devising pro- 
grams of satisfactory vocational training. If such cooperation 
cannot be achieved in any particular calling, it will be incum- 
bent upon the school itself to develop the proper shops, farms, 
commercial activities, or other means of providing a basis of 
practical experience as a means of giving an effective education. 

Social Education. — Under the general head of social edu- 
cation are here included all those special forms of training 
in habits, appreciations, sentiments, knowledge, and ideals 
which have an important bearing on social or group life. It 
is recognized, of course, that physical education and cultural 
education make important, but nevertheless incidental, con- 
tributions of by-products to social education as here defined. 
It is clearly possible and desirable to make social education 
an end or aim in itself, within due limits, especially in second- 
ary schools. But to define a profitable field of activity for 
the school, careful attention must be given to the vast possi- 
bilities, and to the actual accomplishments, of the home, the 
church, the club, and miscellaneous associations, in shaping 
social habits and ideals, and in developing social intelligence. 

After due recognition shall have been given to the efficacy 
of the more or less organized efforts of these non-school 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 763 

agencies, the function of the secondary school in social educa- 
tion then remains to be defined. Emphasis has often been 
laid, and rightly, upon the fact that the secondary school, 
dealing, as it does, with adolescents, possesses a peculiar field 
of opportunity in the shaping of the finer social ideals, such 
as those connected with general service to society, altruism, 
and political insight. 

The making of an effective program of social education will 
require the formulation of a large variety of ends, each repre- 
senting some form of social utihty, towards the attainment 
of which secondary school practices may be directed. It is 
here practicable only to give samples of these. 

1. Team play, whether in physical, vocational, or cultural 
matters, offers an opportunity for the development of certain 
habits of cooperation which, once established, may be expected 
to blend into the larger social effectiveness of the adult. 

2. Knowledge of the common civic activities carried on in 
the community, with provision that in the process of learning 
these the student may observe and even participate where 
practicable, constitutes a valuable end of local civic education. 

3. Habituation to a sound moral working order, including 
a measure of self-government, may be an important factor in 
social training. 

4. It is possible to inspire ideals of social service, — these, 
as far as practicable, being developed in connection with 
the pursuit of attainable and practical ends, such as those 
found in local community civic activities, local forms of 
charity, etc. 

5. It is also possible, in the secondary school, to develop 
perspective and vision as to special forms of social activities, 
such as the economic development of the community, rec- 
reational opportunities, cooperative sanitation, cooperative 
industrial development, territorial differentiation of industry, 
and the like. As a means of promoting this vision or per- 
spective, history will contribute valuable elements. It is 



764 Principles of Secondary Education 

essential, however, that the pursuit of these ends should always 
be begun in the environment, and that only after this begin- 
ning should there be a spreading outward. 

6. It is also possible to do much at this stage in creating 
moral and social ideals in definitely differentiated fields, 
such as the humane treatment of animals, reverence for the 
helpless or the aged, thoroughness of work, and the like. For 
this purpose art, literature, and history may contribute im- 
portant elements, no less than the close study of the social 
environment of the pupil. 

In these and scores of other directions it will be possible 
to set up more or less definitive goals, each of which may be 
attained at an appropriate time and through the use of ap- 
propriate materials and personal agencies. Educational 
efforts in these directions are all designed to promote the 
development of those habits, sentiments, appreciations, ideas, 
and ideals that finally blend themselves into what we call 
" moral character," " ethical standards of conduct," '' the 
social individual," etc. 

Cultural Education. — Finally, we can recognize in the 
completed individual, and as the actual or potential product 
of educational agencies like the school, a variety of forms of 
culture which ultimately merge in the rounded, cultivated 
man or woman. These may be described, on the one hand, 
as powers of execution or expression. For example, we 
describe an individual as capable of speaking correct English, 
conversing fluently in a foreign tongue, reading the literature 
of a foreign language, as being able to paint, to play music, 
or to write poetry. But on the other hand the larger part 
of such cultural attainments are properly to be described 
mainly in terms of appreciation, — the capacity for making 
wise and social choices for utilization or enjoyment. With 
reference to such fields as music, art, literature, science, his- 
tory, economic production of all sorts, and skilled service gen- 
erally, we can recognize in the cultivated individual well-de- 



The Reorganization of Secondary Ecincation 765 

veloped powers of choice. The quahties found in all of these 
specific products and forms of service are themselves deter- 
mined ultimately by the educated powers of consumers. A 
conscious and deliberate plan of liberal education can produce 
better capacities of appreciation than are now found. Such 
powers of appreciation will be discovered to be consistent with 
the more rapid progress of culture and civilization. 

How far the existing secondary school subjects can be ad- 
justed to the requirements of cultural education as here defined 
is now problematical. In the case of many of them it may 
indeed be doubted whether any extensive development in this 
direction is possible. We have, for example, no sufficient 
evidence that a profound, varied, and lasting appreciation of 
hterature generally results from a study of Hterature as now 
carried on in high schools. Science teaching as at present 
organized is open to criticism on the ground that, whatever 
else it produces, it does not result in enduring satisfactions 
based upon the attainment of scientific knowledge, nor in 
the abiding scientific interests which constitute the cultural 
ends that should be reached in a true educational process. It 
is also obvious that secondary school education to-day fails 
to realize ends of true culture in such fields as the fine arts 
and music. 

In defining a variety of fairly concrete cultural ends, each 
one of which may be made a definite educational objective, 
we certainly should greatly increase the possibilities of the 
secondary school as an agency of genuine liberal education. 
This would give opportunity for the more satisfactory con- 
sideration and use of native interests and inclinations than is 
possible under existing conditions in secondary education. 
Culture, it is clear, being an individual possession, may well 
vary greatly in character and actual content as between in- 
dividual and individual. One person may have highly de- 
veloped powers of appreciation of music and other forms of 
art, and nevertheless remain relatively uncultivated in such 



766 Principles of Secondary Education 

fields as science and history. Another individual will find 
his satisfactions and the enrichment of his leisure in the latter 
fields. A third may have his powers of appreciation developed 
in the direction of the more material economic products of 
modern life, and may by his standards of alppreciation con- 
tribute his share to the general elevation of these fields of 
production. 

It is to be expected that in certain departments of common 
or general utilization, the secondary school will do all that it 
can to promote standards for all alike. For example, we all 
utilize, in greater or less degree, the products of the modern 
press, such as the newspaper, the magazine, and current 
books. The secondary school can do a large service for 
culture, by deliberately improving standards of taste within 
these fields, employing for this educational purpose the actual 
products themselves, and holding definite standards of desir- 
able quality before the pupils. 

Culture Primarily Based on Contemporary Life. — It should 
be obvious that a program of cultural education of the sort 
here suggested, like the other programs referred to above, 
must generally have its foundations and primary sources in 
contemporary life. Only upon the foundations of a strong 
and varied knowledge and appreciation of contemporary 
situations and tendencies, with a deliberate forecasting of 
the possible developments of these in the future, will the 
teacher and pupil be able finally to reach back into the his- 
toric world. It is reasonable to expect that with suitable 
pedagogical programs devised for this purpose, there will be 
a constant tendency for exceptional minds to become keenly 
interested in the historical antecedents of the particular fields 
which are being studied at any one time. It is natural and 
desirable that all that material which we call the historical, 
as well as that which deals with the more recondite and more 
remote phases of any subject under consideration, should 
appeal to individuals of exceptional native powers. But it 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 767 

is not wise or profitable to impose upon all individuals alike 
the tasks and goals of learning that really appeal to exceptional 
individuals only. 

Personal Culture and Achievement. — Under the head of 
personal culture as indicated above are to be included those 
powers of accomplishment or achievement, or "doing," which 
are of a cultural, rather than of a vocational, nature. Under 
this head may be included the mastery of a foreign language 
as a tool of appreciation. Similarly, a mastery of certain of 
the technical processes of science, mathematics, history, or 
art, when such mastery is sought primarily with a view to 
enhancing the powers of appreciation or execution in these 
fields, would be considered cultural education. A student 
might give effort to the mastery of gardening or of music or 
drawing, for cultural purposes, that is, non-vocational ap- 
preciation, which would belong properly in this field. 

Obviously, prior to the period of the beginning of secondary 
education, the study of the mother tongue, of arithmetic, and 
of elemental processes in drawing, as these constitute a part 
of the program of elementary education, might also be included 
under this head. 

REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 
NECESSITATED BY FOREGOING ANALYSIS. —The fore- 
going attempt to suggest beginnings in defining valid educa- 
tional aims, if carried to the point of producing definite results, 
would probably involve some fundamental alterations in the 
educational means and methods now employed. Some of the 
present traditional studies of the secondary schools, represent- 
ing, as they do, organized bodies of knowledge, or definite 
forms of skill to be acquired by painstaking effort, would sink 
into the background as to importance. In their place would 
appear wholly new subjects, with corresponding demands for 
new types of method, varied according to the ends held in view 
and according to the degree of attainment expected in any 
given direction. Only a few illustrations of these possible 



768 Principles of Secondary Education 

changes can be suggested here. It should be apparent that, 
having once defined in a clear-cut way the social utilities that 
are to be made the ends of educational effort, the develop- 
ment of appropriate means and methods of attaining them 
would not be difficult. This would be accomplished partly 
through proper application of experiments in educational 
method. Justifying this approach, we have the analogies of 
medicine, engineering, agriculture, and mechanical communi- 
cation. In these fields it is evident that whenever the ends 
of attainment have been somewhat clearly defined, many 
persons are found capable of attacking the problems of the 
means and methods of realizing such ends. 

In Physical Education. — When, for example, a particular 
form of physical development or health becomes defined as 
something to be attained by educational means, many de- 
vices for meeting it soon appear. If the development or 
cultivation of bodily organs is made an end, gymnastic prac- 
tices result. If it is found that the promotion of natural ex- 
ercises and advanced forms of play can best be accomplished 
by team activity, team games and athletics are the outcome. 
If the school perceives that it is its duty to fix in the pupil 
habits of oral hygiene, definitive processes of information- 
giving and inspection of actual practice may follow in such 
a way that within a comparatively short time appropriate 
habits are fixed. If the school finds justification for giving 
definite instruction as to hygienic precautions to be taken 
against bacterial infection of various sorts, such instruction 
becomes easily possible by means of lectures, printed matter, 
pictures, practices of disinfection, etc. 

The significant fact to be noticed is that we multiply means 
and methods in any direction as soon as definite needs and 
purposes are defined. Practices are adapted to the results 
sought ; for one purpose, perhaps, we employ a lecturer ; for 
another, a field exercise. In one case we may employ the 
method of class compulsion ; in others, the method of Individ- 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 769 

ual interview and personal contact. For some purposes of 
instruction, a thousand pupils may be assembled and addressed 
by a competent leader; while in other cases individual con- 
ference only will achieve the results desired. Books and labora- 
tory practice may be used for some purposes, while for others 
only directed practices in the field will be valuable. 

In Vocational Education. — Similarly, in the field of voca- 
tional education, when we have once defined our objectives, 
we find ourselves rapidly moving towards definite forms of 
practice, which will differ widely from the historic school 
practices of academic education because of difference of 
fundamental aim. The modern vocational school presents 
endless characteristics differentiating it from secondary 
" schools " as we have known them. The greatest difficulty 
encountered in the development of vocational education is, 
indeed, due to the attempt to utilize the means and methods 
of academic instruction as these have become fixed in custom. 
But gradually, as definite objectives for vocational education 
become formulated, we are now discarding historic practices, 
and for each particular type of vocational education we are 
developing appropriate ways and means, of which the most 
dominant characteristic, perhaps, is that the learner shall 
actually participate in the elementary stages of the practice 
of the calling into which he purposes to enter. 

In a good school for the training of machinists to-day, shop 
conditions are faithfully reproduced ; technical instruction is 
closely related to practical experience ; the shop seeks to pro- 
duce a marketable product ; the school day and school year 
approximate those of the industry itself ; and, to some extent, 
pupils differentiate into those exercising specialized operative 
functions and those exercising foremanship functions in the 
industry. 

Modern farm schools, at their best, require of their pupils 
long and painstaking application to the processes of actual 
tillage, each pupil endeavoring to reproduce, as far as prac- 

3D 



770 Principles of Secondary Education 

ticable, the economic cycle of operations appropriate to 
agriculture. 

Similarly, wherever practicable, vocational schools seek to 
share with actual economic agencies the responsibility for the 
full vocational education of the pupil. Undoubtedly, in 
time a system will be devised whereby the pupil will remain 
under the general direction of the school during the earlier 
stages of learning, his services being loaned or hired out from 
time to time to the industry itself, as this proves expedient 
or necessary, in the process of vocational training. 

In Social Education. — Within the field of social education 
it is also easily apparent that means and methods of instruc- 
tion must vary largely according to the specific social utili- 
ties held in view. For example, it is a large function of such 
education to produce moral or social ideals. Ideals are to 
be produced by educational influences that are far removed, 
in their essential characteristics, from the drill methods 
characteristic of historic academic education. With reference 
to many forms of social action, the school seeks to give com- 
prehension, perspective, insight; but it does so, as far as 
possible, upon the basis of actual experience. The attainment 
of this experience, of course, will be largely along lines that 
are at present quite foreign to secondary school practice. 
Such experience may be obtained in various forms of service, 
in activities such as those found in the Boy Scout movement, 
in young people's clubs, and in various other forms of modern 
social life. 

The school social group will more and more become a self- 
governing body ; in other words, more self-consciously social 
and self -controlled. Books, lectures, library practice, and 
participation in social activities will all have a place in social 
education at its best ; but it is obvious that at the present 
time we possess few formulas for this purpose. 

In Cultural Education. — The accepted methods of second- 
ary school instruction seem best adapted perhaps to the 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 771 

production of what is here called '' personal culture." Never- 
theless, the changes that must take place even in this field, 
before the specific ends suggested above can be effectively 
utilized, may be described as almost revolutionary. These 
will be especially conspicuous in the production of those forms 
of culture which are characterized chiefly by appreciation and 
the power of choice, rather than by specific powers of intellec- 
tual execution. We know little as yet about the psychological 
principles involved in producing fine appreciation ; but what 
we do know convinces us that it must come, in a large measure, 
as a result of social activity built on tastes and interests already 
in evidence and capable of extended definition and develop- 
ment. If specific ends of culture are set before educators, 
it may not be so difficult to devise methods of realizing such 
ends. For example, suppose we define, as one aim of cultural 
education, the development of a discriminating appreciation 
of good music. The definition of this as an end carries with 
it suggestions as to how such results can be achieved. Let us 
again define, as an aim, the development of a generous and 
sympathetic appreciation of the contributions of the modern 
doctrine of evolution to contemporary thought. Here, again, 
the suggestion of the end carries with it ideas of lectures, of 
skillfully directed reading, and the like, the outcome of which 
would be the same as that produced in a good college or ex- 
tension course of lectures for this purpose. 

Let us again define, as an aim of secondary education in this 
field, a discriminating and helpful attitude toward modern 
magazine literature. Many examples of this literature would 
obviously be brought into a class organized for this purpose. 
A discriminating pedagogy would learn how, by questioning, 
by appealing to native and already established tastes, gradually 
to raise the student's standards in this field. 

In these and hundreds of other directions it seems to be 
possible, having once defined valid educational aims, to devise 
methods by which these aims can be realized. 



772 Principles of Secondary Education 

Effect on the Traditional Subjects. — It has been assumed 
that it is not within the province of the present chapter to dis- 
cuss the reorganization of secondary education as that will be 
affected by changes now taking place, or probably soon to take 
place, within the field of the content and method of the his- 
toric subjects of study in secondary schools. The preceding 
chapters, together with the large amount of educational litera- 
ture now available in this field and to which references have 
already been given, render such discussion unnecessary. 

It is the conviction of the writer that changes and readjust- 
ments made within the historic subjects can be effective and 
of permanent value only when the teachers of these subjects 
already possess quite clearly defined objectives which conform 
to the requirements of a scientific program of education. We 
may, for example, readily assume that in the field of so-called 
English composition the aims now commonly accepted are 
sufficiently definite, scientific, and based upon a sound scheme 
of social values, so that readjustments within that field, both 
as to scope and as to method, will finally result in making the 
subject what it should be educationally. It is possible, also, 
that in the case of the modern languages it will be practicable 
to shape definite programs, both of content and of method, on 
the basis of aims already in part defined. In other words, 
it may be that the scientific aims which should ultimately 
control in the teaching of French and German, for example, 
are even now sufficiently possible of definition to make re- 
adjustments of content and method purposeful and effective. 

In a few other departments of secondary education, such 
as the biological sciences and the practical arts (manual 
training, agriculture, home economics, etc.), it is possible that 
aims are now in process of being clarified to an extent which 
will enable more scientific and effective programs, based upon 
genuine social utilities, to be developed within the next few 
years. 

In other subjects, however, such as mathematics, history, 



The Reorganization of Secondary Education 773 

the classical languages, and such sciences as physics and 
chemistry, it is the conviction of the writer that no readjust- 
ments within the field of either content or method will give 
satisfactory results until such time as valid aims for these 
subjects shall have been defined, examined, and carefully 
tested. An illustration of this may be found in the case of 
Latin. There can be little doubt that during the last quarter 
of a century the methods of teaching this subject have enor- 
mously improved, but notwithstanding this fact the subject 
itself does not to-day " function " educationally to any better 
advantage than in former times. The difficulty now lies not 
so much in the methods of teaching Latin as in the more 
fundamental problem as to the purposes of this study in a 
scientific scheme of secondary education. 

Administrative Changes Necessitated. — - In this chapter, 
also, there has been a deliberate omission of any discussion of 
administrative changes that must necessarily accompany the 
reorganization of secondary education. An adequate treat- 
ment of possible administrative changes can be based only 
upon accepted theories as to the ultimate purposes, means, and 
methods of secondary education. Such possible changes have 
already been suggested in Chapter V. 

It is still uncertain, for example, whether vocational educa- 
tion can be effectively carried on through and by the same 
administrative agencies that control liberal, or general, edu- 
cation. The experience of several European countries has 
been decidedly in the direction of providing separate adminis- 
trative agencies for vocational education. The question is 
still under debate in American states, with the present tendency 
strongly in the direction of differentiating vocational educa- 
tion as simply one phase of all the education under public 
educational authorities. It is by no means certain, however, 
whether this will prove to be the most effective means, once 
clearly defined aims for vocational education are established 
and accepted. 



774 Prmciples of Secondary Education 

It is clear, also, that in the field of more adequate training 
for citizenship, and perhaps in physical education, the require- 
ments of the future will necessitate extensive changes in the 
internal administration of schools. This, however, is a subject 
which is too problematical to be capable of adequate discus- 
sion at the present time. 

THE FINAL WORD IS THIS.— In America, as in other 
civilized countries, society is in process of developing a sound 
and scientific social economy. This econonay will necessarily 
be based upon a more or less scientific scheme of social values, 
thoroughly analyzed. It will be the province of education 
to minister to a realization of these values by training boys and 
girls in directions quite definite and demonstrably worth while. 
The content, the method, and the administrative agencies 
suitable to such education must be worked out as instrumen- 
talities, and must be shaped and changed according to the 
requirements of the particular aims held in view. Until x^ 
educators learn to think of the final purposes of education in 
terms other than mastery of so much knowledge or training 
in particular forms of skill, progress will necessarily be slow. 
When, however, educators cease to think of educational ends 
in terms of subjects and proceed to define their aims in terms 
of an ascertained scheme of values based upon a scientific 
social economy, then rapid reorganization of means and 
methods will undoubtedly take place. 

Note. — The list of topical questions and the bibliography appended to each 
of the preceding chapters of this volume all relate more or less directly to the 
subject matter of this concluding chapter. 



INDEX 



Abilities of students, as determining 
secondary education, lo, 13. 

Academy, 44; catered to students' inter- 
ests, II. 
American : origin and development, S4~ 
57 ; developed into high school, 63 ; 
diflEerence from high school, 67 ; de- 
cline of, 66. 
English : characteristics of, 46-47. See 
also Realschule. 

Acceleration and retardation, 248-240. 

Accrediting of high schools, 161, 163-172; 
Eastern system, 170-172 ; Western 
system, 163-160. See also Adminis- 
tration; College Entrance Examina- 
tion Board Examinations. 

Addams, Jane C, quoted on narrow in- 
iiuence of high school teachers, 350 ; 
on recreation, 334. 

Administration, in England, 132-134, 135; 
in France, 74-101 (outlined, pp. xii, 
xiii) ; in Germany, 102-105, 115-117. 
In United States : changes now in prog- 
ress, 747 ; changes necessitated by 
formulation of new aims and methods, 
773 ; high school systems, 64— 68, 146- 
172 (outlined, p. xv) ; organization of 
high school, 174-2x4 (outlined, pp. 
xiv— xvi) ; socialization of, 736-737. 
See also Accrediting of high schools ; 
Age of beginning secondary education ; 
Budget, school ; Education Act of 1899 ; 
Endowed Schools Act ; Examinations ; 
High Schools ; Hygiene, School ; Inspec- 
tion of high schools ; Number of 
schools ; Principal of high school ; Re- 
organization of secondary education ; 
Salaries ; School population ; Teach- 
ers, preparation of ; Text-books ; Tui- 
tion; Types of schools. 

Adolescence, biological definition, 246 ; 
importance in education first em- 
phasized by Rousseau, 9 ; intellectual 
growth during, 297-298; mental 
pathology of, 292-298 ; method of 
studying, 257, note ; physical char- 



acteristics, 248-257 ; psychological 
phenomena of, 257-272, 321 ; psy- 
chology and hygiene of, 234, 312; 
religious and moral aspects, 285-292 ; 
275, note; social aspects, 272-285. 

Advisor system in high schools, 194. 

Aesthetic side of vernacular teaching, 369. 

Age, of beginning secondary education in 
America and in Europe, 9; as deter- 
mining ideals, 289-290; physiological, 
psychological, and "pedagogical," 248; 
physiological, in relation to success in 
high school, 249; physiological and 
psychological, delimiting secondary 
education, 9, 10, 13. 

Agencies contributing to education, 756- 
7S8. 

Agregation, 89, 100. 

Agricultural education, history of develop- 
ment, 671-673 ; present problem, 678- 
679 ; types of schools, 673-678. See 
also Vocational education. 

Agricultural high schools, seldom realize 
vocational ends, 749, 750. 

Agriculture, as an element of cultural 
education, 767 ; position in the cur- 
riculum, 476. See also Agricultural 
education. 

Aim, relation to content and method, 203 ; 
of the academies, 55 ; of commercial 
education, 663 ; of Greek schools, 1 7, 
23 ; of industrial education, 642 ; of 
realistic education, 45 ; of the Renais- 
sance-Reformation schools, 38 ; of sec- 
ondary education as it is, 748, 749; 
of secondary education as it is often 
claimed to be, 749 ; of the various 
subjects: algebra, 532; art, 582; 
athletics, 709 ; biology, 752, 753 ; civics, 
573 ; geometry, 537 ; Greek, 406-407 ; 
household arts, 610; hygiene, 685; 
Latin, 388; literature, 358; manual 
training, 658 ; mathematics, 530 ; 
modern language study, 424; music, 
603 ; physical education, 699 ; natural 
sciences, 446-449. 



775 



776 



Index 



Aims, clearer definition now being sought, 
747 ; formulated, suggest methods of 
attainment, 768, 768-769 ; inadequate 
character of present, 745 ; inadequate, 
the cause of much futility in education, 
750; more scientific analysis of, de- 
manded, 746. 

Algebra, 530; definition, 531-532; in 
grammar grades, 541-544 ; in second- 
ary schools, 534-536 ; in European 
schools, 536; reasons for studying, 
532-534. See also Geometry ; Mathe- 
matics. 

AUgemeine Landrecht, 123. 

Altruism, in adolescence, 275. 

Angell, as to transfer of training, 304. 

Approbation, love of, in adolescence, 274- 
275- 

Argument, as a form of composition, 374. 

Aristotle, quoted on the distinction be- 
tween elementary and secondary edu- 
cation, 20. 

Arnold of Rugby, 125; and the classics, 
344; and religion in education, 349; 
and sources of energy, 319, 323, 347. 

Arrested development during adolescence, 
292-294. 

Art, adolescent interest in, 308 ; as an ele- 
ment of cultural education, 767; 
gallery, use of school as, 740; impor- 
tance in education, 578, 580; methods 
of teaching, 582-587 ; in education, 
principles underlying, 579-582. 

Arteries, growth during adolescence, 
254. 

Arts, classification of, 578 ; design as relat- 
ing fine to practical arts, 578-594; 
distinction between fine and useful, 
579; university work in, originally 
given in secondary schools, 72. See 
also Art ; Fine Arts ; Household Arts ; 
Music ; Vocational education. 

Ascham, 43 ; a tutor, 46 ; and the classics, 

344- 

Association, of Colleges and Preparatory 
Schools of Middle States and Mary- 
land, 383 ; of Southern Colleges and 
Preparatory Schools, 383. 

Astronomy, in high schools, 475. 

Athletics, in American schools, 720-729 ; 
contestants vs. spectators, 711-716; 
control of, 720-724, 725-727 ; defini- 
tion, 713; educational values, 709- 
716, 727-729, 736; in English public 
schools, 128-129; evils of, 716—720; 



socialized, 739. See also Hygiene; 
Physical education. 
Auchmuty, Richard T., founder of New 
York Trade School, 649. 

Bacon, mentioned, 50. 

Bagley, W. C, on investigation of ado- 
lescent criminal tendencies, 296; as 
to transfer of training, 304. 

Bagster-CoUins, E. W., contributor, p. ix. 
Modern Languages, 424-443. 

Baker, F. T., contributor, p. viii. Composi- 
tion, 373—379 ; College Entrance Re- 
quirements, 383-384; and Krapp, G. 
B., p. vi, English Literature, 356— 
373- 

Baron de Hirsch Trade School, 649, 650. 

Basedow, 51. 

Bedford Grammar School, 131. 

Bell, monitorial scheme in America, 61-62. 

Bell, Sanford, on adolescent love, 264—266. 

Biographical interest in literature, 366—367. 

Biology, actual vs. true aims, 752, 753; 
aims now being clarified, 772 ; in the 
curriculum, 476 : advantages, 486-488 ; 
correlation of botany, zoology, and 
physiology, 494-495 ; method, 488— 
494; subject matter, 4S6. See also 
Natural sciences. 

Bocher, Professor, definition of mathe- 
matics, 529. 

Bones, growth during adolescence, 253 ; 
hygiene, 253. 

Botany, see Biology. 

Bourne, H. E., contributor, p. ix. History, 
549-565. 

Boy Scout movement, 272, 760, 770. 

Bradford Grammar School, 131. 

Brain, growth during adolescence, 257. 

Brinsley, on neglect of arithmetic, 40, 43. 

Brooks, on causes of school mortality, 271. 

Budget, English school, 136 ; French, 93- 
94, 100. See also Administration. 

Canning Club work, 634. 

Censor of studies, a discipline master, 88. 

Centennial Exhibition, and manual train- 
ing, 661. 

Central High School of Philadelphia and 
commercial education, 667. 

"Central Schools" of France, 73. 

"Certificate of secondary studies," ill 
girls' lycee, 99. 

Certification of high schools, see Accredit- 
ing. 



Index 



m 



Character building, as aim of education, 

749- 

Charter-house, 124. 

Chemistry, actual vs. true aims, 752, 753 ; 
in the curriculum, 475, 476: beginning 
point,so9-5i2 ; method, so8-sog, 513- 
515, 516; practical applications, 517- 
519; subject matter, si3, 515-516; 
textbooks, how to use, 512-513. See 
also Natural sciences. 

Church, its assumption of school control, 
30-31 ; a factor in education, 757, 758, 
760, 762. 

Cicero, quoted, on oratory, 26. 

Circulation, disturbances during adoles- 
cence, 255. 

Citizenship, good, as an end of education, 
746. 

Civics, definition, 565 ; introduction into 
schools, 565-567 ; methods of teach- 
ing, 569-572 ; position in curriculum 
567-569, 572; purpose in teaching, 
573 ; socialized methods, 736, 741 ; 
textbooks, 570, 573. See also Econom- 
ics ; History. 

Civil polity, as a part of civics, 565. 

Class conference vs. recitation, 460. 

Class distinction, conferred by secondary 
education, 6, 7. 

Classics, in English "pubhc" schools, 125. 

Claxton, Commissioner, suggestions for 
greater efficiency of high schools, 201. 

Clergy, the sole profession in Middle Ages, 
5, 30. 

Club, a factor in education, 757, 758, 762. 

Coeducation, in relation to adolescent de- 
velopment, 308-310; nonexistent in 
Germany, 115. 

College, de Guyenne, curriculum, 42 ; 
d'Harcourt, oldest secondary school, 
72; de la Rive, curriculum, 41-42. 

College, developed from academy, 57 ; 
dominance of, 748 ; French communal, 
75> 95; relation to high school, 188; 
Entrance Certificate Board, of New 
England, 170-172; Entrance Exami- 
nation Board, 163, 383, 384, 433-434, 
473, 544 ; effects on high school science 
teaching, 474-475 ; entrance require- 
ments, early, 58; in Enghsh, 382-384 ; 
in mathematics, 544-546; in history, 
early, 553 ; in modern languages, 433 ; 
in natural sciences, 473-475. 
Colvin, S. S., quoted on transfer of train- 
ing, 303-304- 



Comenius, 51. 

Commerce, High School of. New York City, 
667 ; course of study, 668-670. 

Commercial education, in public high 
schools, 664-670; origin and need of, 
663-664; results, 670; socialized 
methods, 735-736; teachers, 671. 
See also Types of schools; Vocational 
education. 

Commercial high schools, seldom realize 
vocational ends, 749, 750. 

Commission of Accredited Schools, pur- 
poses, 167; recommendations, 168; 
Southern, 169. 

Committee, on college entrance require- 
ments, 473-474 ; recommendations in 
science, 476; Of Fifteen, civics, 566; 
of Five, civics, 568, 571; of Seven: 
civics, 566, 571, history, 557. 
of Ten : appointed, 76; economics, 573 ; 
Enghsh, 383; history, 554-555; 
same education for all students, 194; 
science teaching, 473. 
of Twelve, 433, 445. 

Composition, aim in language, painting, 
sculpture, 373 ; aims (in language) 
already well defined, 772; definition, 
373 ; distinguished from rhetoric, 373 ; 
four fundamental forms, 373-374; 
teaching of, 374-379. See also Litera- 
ture ; Vernacular. 

Concordat, abrogation of, 73. 

Conduct, ethical standards of, as result of 
education, 764. 

Content of subject, to be determined by 
purpose in teaching it, 203-204; from 
social viewpoint, 734. 

Control of schools during the Renaissance- 
Reformation period, 38, 39. 

Cooper Union, of New York City, 647. 

Cooperation between school and home, 
335 ; between school and industries, 
627, 652-654, 762, 770. 

Coover, as to transfer of training, 304. 

Corderius, method, 43. 

Correspondence schools, 654. 

Crampton, on relation of physiological age 
to success in high school, 249. 

Criminahty during adolescence, 294-297. 

Crosswell, James G., contributor, p. viii. 
The Private Secondary School, 233- 

243- 
Cubberley, E. P., contributor, p. vii, State 
Systems of High Schools, 146-149 ; 
Maintenance and Support, 154-161. 



11^ 



Index 



Cultural education, analysis of aims, 765- 
767; definition, 759, 764-766; reor- 
ganization based on new aims, 770- 
771. 

Culture, as the aim of education, 746, 749. 

Curriculum, the academies, 57-60; E. 
Armston's school for girls, 59; place 
of design in : Europe, 593-594, United 
States, 593 ; English public schools, 
^2), 34; failure to prepare for parent- 
hood, 337-338; of French secondary 
schools, 78-80, 96 ; German secondary 
schools, 49-50, 108, 109, iio-iii, 113. 
High school : changes and characteristics, 
214-216; early development, 67-68; 
factors in determining, 177; rural, 
150-151; similar in all high schools, 
147-148 ; socialized, 734. 
Latin grammar schools, Renaissance- 
Reformation period, 40 ; in America, 
SZ ; Roman grammar school, 27 ; 
service of the academy to, 45 ; social 
viewpoint, 734-735 ; vocational idea, 
Zii- See also Elective system; Pro- 
gram of studies ; and Biology ; Chem- 
istry, etc. 

Cygnaeus, Otto, pioneer in manual train- 
ing, 660. 

Dante, quoted, on exposition, 35. 

Davis, as to transfer of training, 304. 

Declamation, the teaching of, 379. 

Degrees, French, agregation, 89; bacca- 
laureate, 85-87 ; substitutes for, in 
the case of girls, 99. 

Delsarte system of exercises, 700. 

Dementia prcRCox, 292. 

Democratic function of secondary school, 
9, 13. See also Universal education. 

Denominational schools, 241. 

Description, as a form of composition, 373- 
374- 

Design, place in education, 592-594; in 
fine arts, 589-592 ; the link between 
fine and useful arts, 587-588; in prac- 
tical arts, 588-589, 590-591. See also 
Art ; Arts ; Fine arts ; Industrial 
education ; Manual training. 

Development, arrested during adolescence, 
292—294. 

Dewey, John, contributor, p. ix, Art in 
Education, 578-582; quoted on con- 
duct, 315; on cultivation of will, 329, 
note; on means of gaining power, 
313-314; on media of training in 



school, 338; on the teaching of his- 
tory, 205-206 ; and the University 
Elementary School of Chicago, 660. 

Direct method of language teaching, see 
Oral method. 

Discipline, dependent on understanding of 
adolescence, 188; relation to public 
sentiment of school, 189. See also 
Formal discipline; Self-government. 

Diversification, of secondary schools, in 
Europe, 14 ; needed in America, 15 ; of 
educational opportunities, 745. 

Dogmas, educational, now giving way, 746. 

Double periods, 180. 

Dow, A. W., contributor, p. ix, Methods of 
Teaching Art ; Design, 582-594. 

Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, 655. 

Dulwich, day school, 131. 

East India School, 51. 

Ebert, as to transfer of training, 303, 304. 

Ecole Poly technique, 439. 

Ecoles pratiques, 673-674. 

Econome, bursar, 88. 

Economics, definition, 573 ; introduction 
into the schools, 573, 574; methods, 
574; textbooks, 574. See also His- 
tory ; Civics. 

Eddy, W. H., on teaching of sex hygiene,' 
270. 

Edelschiilen, 44. 

Education, causes of present multiplied 
demands upon, 745 ; its agencies in de- 
veloping the individual, 757. See also 
Agricultural education ; Commercial 
education ; Elementary education ; 
Industrial education ; Moral education ; 
Physical education ; Primary school ; 
Religious education ; Secondary edu- 
cation ; Social education ; Vocational 
education. 

Education Act of 1899, England, 132-134. 
See also Administration. 

Efficiency, attained only by arousing will, 
315; demanded by society, 734-735; 
of German secondary school system, 
reason for, 105 ; of high school deter- 
mined by its administration, 174-175; 
how to attain, in American industries, 
647 ; impossible without valid aims in 
education, 750; secondary education 
must be a training in, 14, 15. 

Eighteenth-century conception of second- 
ary education, 6, 7. 

Elective system in high schools, 220-226; 



Index 



779 



French, German, and American sj's- 
tems compared, 114-115. See also 
Curriculum ; Program of studies. 

Elementary education, distinction from 
secondary education : 
First made by Greeks, 16; origin of the 
practical distinction, 16-19; origin of 
the theoretical distinction, 19-21. 
Factors in the distinction : badge of class 
distinction, 6, 7, 12, 13, 71-72, 77, 105- 
106, 130; deference to student's inter- 
ests and abilities, 10, 11, 13 ; method, 
3, 4, 12; pecuHar subject matter, 4, 
12; preparation for profession, 5, 12; 
preparation for professional training, 
6 ; physiological and psychological age, 
9, 10, 13, 246, 249—250, 298; social 
selection, 7-9, 13, 123-124; training, 
not instruction, 3, 12. 
At present : a complex of these factors, 
11-14; in addition, social service and 
personal efiSciency, 14, 15. Sec also 
Primary school ; Secondary education. 

Elementary school, superseding secondary 
school in fundamental importance, 2. 

"Elementary science" courses, 475. 

Elocution, as a separate branch of EngHsh 
training, 381-382. 

Endowed Schools Act, England, 125. See 
also Administration. 

Endowments in Middle Ages, 31-33. 

Energy, sources of mental, 318. 

England, the academies, 46-47, 49-50; 
Greek in, 417-418; history in, 559- 
560 ; modern languages in, 442-443 ; 
school population, 140-141 ; second- 
ary education in, 71, 122-141 (out- 
lined, p. xiii, xiv). 

Englewood High School, coeducation but 
not coinstruction, 309. 

English, abihty to use, as aim of education, 
749- 

English Classical School, the first American 
high school, 61. 

Erasmus, quoted, 43-44, 344. 

Ethical ideals of adolescence, 291. 

Ethics, as part of civics, 565. 

Eton, 124; program of studies, 127-128. 

Examinations, French, 86, 99; German, 
116; Regents', 202 ; teachers', in Ger- 
many, 104. See also Accrediting of 
schools; Administration; College En- 
trance Examination Board ; College 
entrance requirements ; Inspection of 
schools. 



Excursions, school, 271-272; for science 

study, 467-470. 
Exposition, as a form of composition, 373- 

374- 

Fall River, Mass., state-aided textile 
school, 655. 

Farnsworth, C. H., contributor, p. ix. 
Music Teaching in the Schools, 595- 
604. 

Farrington, Frederic E., contributor, p. vii, 
European Systems of Secondary 
Schools, 71-140. 

Fees, school, see Tuition fees. 

Fellenberg, 51 ; his scheme in America, 
60. 

Fine arts, study of, failure to develop true 
culture, 765. See also Art; Arts; 
Household Arts; Music; Vocational 
education. 

Finland, manual training in, 660. 

Formal discipline, problem of, 298-306 ; 
and algebra, 534 ; experimental studies 
of transfer of training, 302-305 ; and 
geometry, 537-538; and Greek, 407; 
and Latin, 387-388 ; and manual train- 
ing, 659 ; and modern languages, 424 ; 
and natural sciences, 446-447, 454- 
4S8. 

Foster, Dr. W. L., on physiological age in 
relation to success in high school, 249- 
250. 

France, agricultural education in, 673-674 ; 
history in, 558-559, 560; modern 
languages in, 439-442 ; school popu- 
lation, 140-141 ; secondary education 
in, 71, 72-101 (outlined, p. xii, xiii). 

Francke, 48. 

Franker, as to transfer of training, 304. 

Frankfort-plan schools, 113. 

Frankfort system, and teaching of Greek, 
416. 

Frankhn, Benjamin, 53, 54. 

FrankUn Union, of Philadelphia, 647. 

Frauenschule, 116, 117; weekly program, 
119. 

Free schools, see Tuition fees. 

Freud, on sex manifestations, 259, 261, 
263 ; therapeutic measures, 294. 

Froebel, i; a tutor, 46, 51. 

Fiirslenschiilen, 44, 47. 

"Gangs," 275-276. 

"General science" courses, 476. 

Geography in the curriculum, 475, 476; be- 



78o 



Index 



ginning point, 477-479; concepts to 
be given, 476-477, 482-483; method, 
477-479, 483-485 ; order of topics, 
485-486 ; textbooks and other sources 
of information, 479-481. See also 
Natural sciences. 
Geology, 475. 

Geometry, 530; definition, "536; position 
in grammar grades, 541-544; position 
in secondary schools, 538-539; re- 
forms and improvements, 539-541. 
See also Algebra ; Mathematics. 
George, W. R., his " Credo, " 296-297 ; and 

sources of energy, 319. 
George Junior Republic, 323. 
German Association for the Secondary 

Education of Girls, 115. 
Germany, agricultural education in, 673- 
674; commercial education, 668; 
Greek, 406, 415-416; history, 558- 
559; industrial education, 645-646, 
653,655; Latin, 415-416; modern 
languages, 436-439; physical educa- 
tion, 704; school population, 140- 
141; secondary education, 71, 72, loi— 
122 (outlined, p. xiii). 
Ginnasio, 36. 

Girls, first form of secondary education for, 
7 ; first secondary schools for, in Amer- 
ica, 59-60 ; education in England, 141 ; 
education in France, 94-101, 141; 
education in Germany, 115-120, 141; 
education in United States, 59-60, 
648, 704-705. See also Coeducation; 
Household arts; Program of studies. 
Goodell, T. D., contributor, p. ix, Greek, 

406-420. 
Grammar, origin, 4 ; mastery of, a profes- 
sion, 5 ; change in content, 30. 
Grammar school, relation to high school, 
186-188. See also Latin grammar 
school. 
Greard, M., quoted on boys' and girls' 

secondary education, 94. 
Greek language, mastery for cultural ends, 
767; method for beginners, 408-415; 
purpose and value, 406-408 ; place 
in schools, 125, 415-419; valid aims 
not yet formulated, 773; visual aids, 
420-421. 
Greek view, of gymnastics and music, 580 ; 
of value of gymnastics, compared 
with present view, ^£8; of recreation, 
needed to-day, 334 ; of secondary 
education, 3, 16-21. 



Gregariousness in adolescence, 273. 

Griscom, John, and the high school, 61. 

Groton, Mass., school of horticulture and 
landscape gardening for women, 
678. 

Group work in classroom, 284-285. 

"Growing pains," 253. 

Growth, arteries, 254; bones, 253; brain, 
257; and health, 252; heart, 254; in 
height, 250; lungs, 255; muscles, 254; 
by parts, 252 ; in weight, 250. 

Guts Muth-, system of gymnastics, 700. 

Gymnasium, and agricultural education, 
674; course of study, 108-109; 
Frankfort system, 113; German form 
of the Latin grammar school, 36; 
graduates compared with those of lycee 
and England pubhc school, 129; and 
Greek, 415-416; and history, 558- 
559 ; and mathematics, 536. See also 
Germany ; not reached through ele- 
mentary school, 107 ; one of the types 
replacing Ritterakademien, 47. 

Gymnastics, see Athletics; Greek view of 
gymnastics; Hygiene; Physical edu- 
cation. 

Habits to be developed by study of natural 
science, 449. 

Hall, Stanley, adolescent altruism, 275; 
appetite in adolescence, 261 ; on bone 
growth, 254; change of voice, 256; 
high school science, 306; leading in- 
vestigator of adolescence, 257, note; 
love for older persons, 265; mani- 
festations of sex instinct, 259; moral 
idealism, 347. 

Handwork, see Manual training. 

Harrow (1571), 124. 

Hartwell, on death rate in Boston, 252. 

Health in relation to adolescence, 252. 

Heart, growth during adolescence, 254. 

Hecker and real education, 48, 49. 

Height as an index of physiological age 
249, note; growth in, during adoles- 
cence, 250-252. 

Hellenism, value of acquaintance with, 
406-408. 

Herbart, i ; a tutor, 46 ; on f ailiu-e of 
external forces to change character, 

313- 

Heredity, a factor in developing the indi- 
vidual, 757. 

Hero worship, and moral training, 344-345. 
See also Moral education. 



Index 



781 



Hertel, on health during adolescence, 

2SS- 

Hetherington, Clark W., contributor, p. 
X, Athletics, 709-729. 

High school, comparison with Latin gram- 
mar school and academy, 60-61, 67 ; 
definition (1849), 65; organization of, 
174-229 (outlined, pp. xiv-xvi) ; origin 
of term, 61, 64, 65 ; origin and devel- 
opment, 61-63, 146. 23s ; social as- 
pects of, 732—742 (outlined, p. xxvii) . 
Systems : development of, 64-68 ; high- 
est types in the United States, 158- 
160 ; means of securing, 148. 

High schools, basis of apportionment of 
support to, 1 60-1 61; legal provisions 
for, 146; maintenance and support in 
various states, 154-158; method of 
transferring pupils to college, 161, by 
examination of applicant, 162-163, 
by accrediting the school, 162, 163- 
172 ; political unit of organization, 
148-149; uniformity in, 146-148, 
747—748. See also Administration. 

Higher Training School, German, 116, 117 ; 
weekly program, 120. 

Historic sense, development of, as aim of 
education, 749. 

Historical side of vernacular teaching, 367- 
368. 

History, ai^: actual vs. truOj, 752, 753; 
valid, not yet formulated, 773 ; defini- 
tion, 549-550; as an element of cul- 
tural education, 767; materials, 550- 
5ST ; as means of moral training, 343, 
344-345; methods: 564, Dewey quoted 
on, 205-206, socialized, 773; place in 
the curriculum, 552-555 ; place in Eu- 
ropean schools, 558-559; problems of 
teaching, 551-552; visual aids to 
teaching, 564—565. See also Civics; 
Economics. 

Home, a factor in education, 757, 758, 760, 
762. 

Home life, as determining ideals, 290. 

Hoole, method in the Grammar schools, 
43- 

Hopkins, Edward, and the Latin Grammar 
Schools, 52. 

Horace Mann period, 63. 

Household arts education, aims now being 
clarified, 772; close connection with 
life necessary, 611— 612; clothing and 
hygiene, 612-613; content, 609-610; 
equipment, 618-619; exhibitions, 620- 



621; food and nutrition, 613-616; 
home formerly the place for teaching, 
60S; housing and home-keeping, 616— 
617, 619-620, 623—624; purpose, 610- 
611 ; socialized, 735 ; status in schools 
of United States, 632-637; teachers, 
621-623; vocational aspect, 624-632. 
See also Types of schools ; Vocational 
education. 

Humanism, long persistence, in England, 
125—126; in France, 73. 

Humanizing the school, 193, 732-742. 
See also Social aspects of high school 
education ; Social education ; Soci- 
ology. 

HvLxley, on the intellectual ladder in 
America, 106. 

Hygiene, of bone growth, 253-254 ; defini- 
tion, 685 ; personal, 685-688 ; position 
in curriculum, 688-690, 692-694; 
scope of course, 690-691, 693-694; 
methods, 692. 
School, 694 ; of the school child, 695 ; 
of instruction, 696; construction and 
sanitation of schoolhouse, 696—698. 
Sex, instruction in, 266-270, 694; of 
voice during adolescence, 256-257. 
See also Administration ; Athletics ; 
Physical education. 

Ideals, adolescent, 330-331 ; developed by 
scientific study, 453-454; of sexual 
honor, 336-337 ; studies of, 289-292. 
See also Moral education ; Reorganiza- 
tion of secondary education. 

Imperial Technical School of St. Petersburg, 
661. 

Industrial education, definition, 642 ; 
European experience, 645-646 ; factors 
in present problem, 644-645 ; manual 
training, 658-662 ; origin of present 
problem of, 643 ; socialization of 
methods, 735 ; United States, con- 
ditions in, 646-658. See also House- 
hold arts; Industries; Types of 
schools ; Vocational education. 

Industries, chart showing proportion of 
workers to boys in training, 196-199; 
cooperation with schools, 199-200, 
737i 77°- See also Industrial educa- 
tion. 

Inspection of high schools, 161, 164-169; 
not required for accrediting, 170-172. 
See also Accrediting of high schools ; 
Administration. 



782 



hidex 



Institutions contributing to education, 
757-758. 

Instruction, type of, as determining ideals, 
2go-29i. 

Interests of students, as determining sec- 
ondary education, 10, 13. 

Jahn, system of gymnastics, 700. 

James, E. J., and commercial high schools, 

667. 
James, Wm., on formal discipline, 303, 304. 
Japan, agricultural education in, 673, 674. 
Jesuit system, selective function, 8 ; Ratio 

studiorum, a model for generations, 72. 
Johnson, Joseph H., contributor, p. x. 

Commercial Education, 663-671. 

Kerschensteiner, Dr., quoted on inde- 
pendent thinking, 315-316; on 
trade work in continuation schools, 

645- 
Key, Axel, study of health in adolescence, 

252, 255- 

Kline, on cause of truancy, 271. 

Knowledge, as well as feelings, indicated 
by tastes, 364-365. 

Krapp, George P., and Baker, F. T., con- 
tributors, p. viii, English Literature, 
356-383- 

Laboratory, in biology, 493-494 ; in chem- 
istry, 513, 517-518; double periods, 
180; in geography, 484-485 ; in phys- 
ics, 505-506 ; in science teaching, 462- 
467. See also Natural sciences. 

Lancaster, E. J., on adolescence, 260, 262 ; 
on types of reading preferred by adoles- 
cents, 308. 

Lancaster, Joseph, his monitorial ideas in 
America, 61-62. 

Land Grant Colleges, 672. See also 
Morrill Act. 

Language study, during adolescence, 307 ; 
socialized methods in, 735. See also 
Greek; Latin; Modern languages; 
Vernacular. 

Lantern slides, in study of Latin and 
Greek, 420; in natural sciences, 
467. 

Latin, mastery for cultural ends, 767 ; 
methods of teaching, 389-405 ; place 
in the curriculum, 125, 387; reorgani- 
zation needed, 751; valid aims not 
yet formulated, 773; value, 387-389; 
visual aids, 420-421. 



Latin grammar school, in American colo- 
nies, 37 ; narrow conception of abili- 
ties, 8 ; origin and development, 51-53. 
in Renaissance-Reformation period, 
36-37 ; selective function, 8. See 
also Lycee; Gymnasium; "Public" 
schools. 

Leadership, training for, in ancient Greece, 
20; in England, 123, 128-129; in 
France, 77, loi ; in Germany, 106- 
107. 

Lecture demonstrations in science teach- 
ing, 467. 

Lehrplan of 1901, on Greek, 406. 

Lewis, Dr. Dio, system of calisthenics, 
703. 

Lewis, W. D., contributor, p. vii. Organi- 
zation of the High School, 174-214. 

Lewis Institute, Chicago, 655. 

Library, a factor in education, 757, 758, 
760. 

Life, influence of new conditions of, 234, 
558, 608-610, 623, 644, 663, 672 ; re- 
lation of secondary education to, 732- 
742; in England, 123, 128; in Ger- 
many, loi ; in United States, 194—201. 
See also Humanizing the curriculum; 
Reorganization of secondary educa- 
tion ; Social aspects of high school 
education ; Social education ; Soci- 
ology ; Vocational education. 

"Lime-hunger," 253. 

Lindsay, Ben., on sources of energy, 319. 

Ling system of gymnastics, 699, 700. 

Linguistic side of vernacular teaching, 365- 
366. 

Literature, adolescent interest in, 307 ; 
as an art, 582 ; failure of its study to 
develop appreciation, 765 ; as means 
of moral training, 343-344; Greek 
views of principles underlying its 
teaching, 356-357- 
English, in secondary schools, 357; ap- 
preciation, 358; cultural value, 362; 
grading of material, 363 ; literary 
language, 359-360; moral value, 362; 
philological method, 360; structure 
and technique, 361 ; vocabulary, 358- 
359. See also Composition. 

Locke, a tutor, 46 ; quoted, 50. 

Lodge, Gonzales, contributor, p. viii, 387- 

405- 
"Log college," preceding Princeton, 54. 
Logic, origin, 4 ; mastery of, a profession, 

5 ; change in content, 30. 



Index 



783 



Love, development of, in adolescence, 264- 

266. 
Lowell, Mass., State-aided textile school, 

655. 

Ludus Literariiis, and the neglect of arith- 
metic, 40. 

Lungs, growth during adolescence, 255. 

Lycee, a boarding school, 87-88; defined, 
75; degree awarded, 85-87, gg; a fin- 
ishing school — comparison of gradu- 
ates with those of gymnasium or Eng- 
lish public school, 129 ; French form of 
the Latin grammar school, 36; for 
girls, 94, 95 ; graduate courses, 80 ; 
history in, 558-559 ; modern languages 
in, 439-442 ; preparation of teachers, 
100; program of studies, 80-85, 97- 
98 ; teachers and officers, 88 ; tuition 
fees, 93, 100. See also College; Col- 
lege, French communal ; France, sec- 
ondary education in. 

Lyte, Sir Maxwell, on education for public 
life, 124. 

Lyzeum, 115, 116; weekly program, 118, 
119. ^ee a/.yo Germany ; Gytnnasium ; 
Oberlyzemn ; Realgymnasium ; Real- 
schule. 

MacKenzie, on voice training during 
adolescence, 257. 

Manchester Grammar School, 131. 

Manhattan Trade School, 624. 

Manual arts high schools, seldom realize 
technical ends, 749. 

Manual training, definition, 658; content 
of course, 660 ; educational value, 658- 
660 ; place in various national educa- 
tional systems, 660-662 ; relation to in- 
dustrial education, 662. See also Indus- 
trial education ; Vocational education. 

Maps, in teaching the classics, 420. 

Massachusetts Commission on Industrial 
and Technical Education, 651. 

Mathematics, branches of the subject, 
S30; college entrance requirements, 
544-546 ; as an element of cultural 
education, 767; nature and use, 529; 
reasons for studying, 530 ; reorganiza- 
tion needed, 751 ; scope of secondary, 
531 ; valid aims not yet formulated, 
773 ; visual aids to teaching, 546-547. 
See also Algebra ; Geometry. 

Mechanics Institute of New York, 647. 

Melanchthon, 43. 

Mental training, as aim of education, 749. 



Merchant Taylors', 124. 

Meteorology, 475. 

Method, wider definition of, 747. 

In various schools : the academy, 60 ; 
service of the academy to, 45 ; develop- 
ment of : in high school, 67, 68 ; in 
Latin grammar schools of America, 53 ; 
in schools of Middle Ages, 34 ; in Ren- 
aissance-Reformation schools, 42—44 ; 
Roman contribution to, 27-29. 
In the various subjects : to be deter- 
mined by purpose of teaching the sub- 
ject, 203-204; art, 582-587, 592-593; 
biology, 48S-494; chemistry, 508- 
509; composition, 375-379; English, 
370-373; geography, 477-481, 483- 
486; Greek, 408-415; history, 560- 
564 ; Latin, 389-405 ; modern lan- 
guages, 424-431, 437-439; music, 
597-604; natural sciences, 459-472; 
physics, 496-498, 500-504, 505-508. 
Scientific, how to build up concept of, 
in mind of pupil, 456 ; value of the ac- 
quisition, 458-459 ; mastery of scien- 
tific method, as aim of education, 749. 

Methods, depend on aims, 754-755 ; more 
scientific analysis of, demanded, 746 ; 
new, have developed in secondary 
schools, I ; often uncertain and arbi- 
trary, 745 ; reorganization needed, 
753 ; socialized, 735-736. 

Meumann as to transfer of training, 303, 
304- 

Meylan, G. R., and Storey, Thomas A., 
contributors, p. x. Hygiene and Physi- 
cal Education, 685-705. 

Michigan plan of accrediting high schools, 
164-167. 

Middle Ages, view of secondary education, 
5 ; contribution to secondary educa- 
tion, 29; 30; use of Latin, 387. 

Migratory instinct in adolescence, 270-272. 

Military schools, private, 240. 

Milton, 46, 49 ; on value of classical study, 
343-344- 

Milwaukee School of Trades, 649. 

Minister der geistlichen und Unterrichts- 
Angelegenheiten, 102. 

Minister of education, French and German, 
difference in responsibility, 102-103. 

Minnesota agricultural college, 674. 

Models, of geometric solids, 546-547 ; use 
in teaching Latin and Greek, 421. 

Modern Language Association, 433. 

Modern languages, actual vs. true aims. 



784 



Index 



7S2, 7S3 ; alms already well defined, 
772; mastery for cultural ends, 767; 
methods of teaching, 424-431, 437- 
439; place in curriculum, 431-443; 
purpose of study, 424; results of 
school work, 431 ; socialized methods, 

737- 

Modislenschulen, 44. 

Monitorial high schools, 61-62. 

Monroe, Paul, editor and contributor, p. 
vii, Meaning and Scope of Secondary 
Education, 1-15 ; Historic Sketch of 
Secondary Education, 16-70. 

Montaigne, quoted on method, 50. 

Moral aspects of adolescence, 285-292. 

Moral character, as result of education, 764. 

Moral education, 313—347, 350, 353 (out- 
lined, p. xviii, xix). See also Reli- 
gious education. 

Moral instruction, direct, 317, and note. 

Morrill Act, 648, 672. 

Mt. Hermon School, Mass., agricultural, 
678. 

Municipal activities, course in, 567. 

Municipal civics, syllabus of, 567. 

Municipal government, courses in, 572. 

Muscles, growth during adolescence, 254. 

Music teaching in the schools, aim, 594- 
595 ; failure to develop true culture, 
765; methods, 597-603, 736, 740; 
present broadening of use and appre- 
ciation, 595-597, 603-604. See also 
Art. 

Narration, as a form of composition, 373- 

374- 
National Conference on College Entrance 

Requirements in English, 383. 
National Council of teachers of English, 

384- 

National education, see Universal educa- 
tion. 

National Farm School, Doylestown, Pa., 
678. 

Natural sciences, aims, actual and ideal, 
752 ; alleged inadequacies, 306-307 ; 
methods, 459-472, 735 ; mastery of 
scientific method as aim of education, 
749 ; relation to college entrance re- 
quirements, 473-475 ; subjects taught, 
475, 476; values, 446-459, 765, 767. 
See also Biology ; Chemistry ; Geog- 
raphy; Physics. 

Nautical callings, in vocational training, 
761. 



New Bedford, state-aided textile school, 

ess- 
New England Association of Colleges and 
Preparatory Schools, 383, 554. 

New England Commission of Colleges, 383. 

New York Trade School, 649, 650. 

Newton High School, study of cost of 
various subjects per pupil-hour of 
recitation, 199. 

Non-conformity, effect on secondary edu- 
cation, 47, 54. 

Normal schools, developed from academies, 
57- 

Normallehrplan des Gymnasiums, and 
algebra, 536. 

Northampton School of Technology, 678. 

Number of schools, increase in Renaissance- 
Reformation period, 37-40 ; academies 
in America, 56; English "public," 
124; English secondary, 136; German 
secondary, 1 1 i-i 1 2 ; high schools, 
65-66; lycees and communal colleges, 
87 ; rural high schools, 1 51-154. See 
also Administration. 

Nurture, a factor in developing the indi- 
vidual, 757. 

Oberlehrer, 121. 

Oberlyzeum, 116, 117; weekly program, 119, 
120. See also Lyzeum. 

Oherrealschule, 49, no, 116; weekly pro- 
gram, III. See also Realgymnasium ; 
Realschide. 

Occupational ideals, variety of, 291. 

Ohio Mechanics Institute, of Cincinnati, 
647, 655. 

Oral method of language teaching, 395— 
396, 410-41 1, 424-427. 

Orator, sole type of educated man in Rome, 
28. 

Oratory, the teaching of ancient, 23, 26; 
modern, 379-381. 

Organization of high school, see Administra- 
tion. 

O'Shea, M. V., quoted, on method, 203. 

Oster, Sir Wm., quoted, on value of Greek, 
406. 

Palmer, Erastus, contributor, p. viii, Oral 

Speech, 379-382. 
Parents' meeting, 335-336. 
Particularschulen, 44. 
"Passing," system encourages mental 

loafing, 329. 
Pathology, mental, of adolescence, 292-298. 



Index 



785 



lulsen, on voice control during adoles- 
cence, 256-257. 

jdagogia, 44. 

Pedagogical" age vs. physiological and 
psychological, 248. 

iirce, Benj., definition of mathematics, 
529- 

;rry, Clarence A., contributor, p. x, 
Social Aspects of High School Educa- 
tion, 732-742. 

;rse School, Cambridge, program of 
studies, 12S; experimental work in 
teaching classics, 413. 

;stalozzi, 51 ; his ideas in America, 60. 

lelps, Jessie, on teaching of sex hygiene, 
270. 

lilanthropinists,' 51. 

lillips' academies, 55. 

lysical education, adequate teaching will 
necessitate changes in administration, 
774; analysis of aims, 760-761; defi- 
nition, 759; early conceptions, 698- 
699; forms of gymnastic exercise, 
700; gymnastics for girls, 704; 
gymnastics vs. athletics, 700-702 ; 
modern views, 699-700, 709 ; position 
in schools, 703-704 ; reorganization 
based on these aims, 768-769. See 
also Athletics; Hygiene. 

lysical efficiency as an end of education, 
746. 

lysics, actual vs. true aims, 752, 753 ; 
beginning points, 495-503 ; in the cur- 
riculum, 475, 476; method, 496-498, 
500-504, 505-508 ; subject matter, 
495-496, 504-505 ; valid aims not yet 
formulated, 773. See also Natural 
sciences. 

lysiological age, concept of, 248 ; relation 
to success in high school, 249-250; 
vs. psychological and "pedagogical" 
age, 248. 

.ysiology, see Biology, 
ysique, mental and moral advantages of 
developing the, 327. 

ito, and the choice of studies, 343 ; on 
education for leadership, 20; on the 
teaching of literature, 356-357. 

lyground, a factor in education, 757, 
7S8, 760. 

Hce power, a factor in education, 757, 758. 
litical evils, one remedy may lie in high 

school extension, 742. 
ictical arts, aims now being clarified, 
772. See also Household arts. 
3E 



Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 655. 

Preparatory schools, private and public, 
239-240; in England are not second- 
ary schools, 130. 

Press, the, a factor in education, 757, 758, 
760. 

Primary school, distinction from secondary, 
in France, 76-77, in Germanj^ 105- 
107. See also Elementary education. 

Principal of high school and board of edu- 
cation, 2 1 1-2 13; as critic of class 
work, 206 ; not to be a czar, 174 ; and 
the heads of departments, 206 ; and 
the narrow teacher, 201-202 ; open- 
mindedness necessary in adjusting 
school to life, 200-201, 738; and the 
principals of grammar schools, 186-187 '> 
relation to various activities of the 
school, 184; spirit reflected in school, 
201, 738; visits to classes, 206. See 
also Administrations. 

Principalship, how to attract first-class 
men, 213-214. 

Private schools, definition, 233 ; advantages 
and disadvantages, 233-235 ; types of, 
233-234, 237-241. 

Probejahr, 121. 

Problem, defined, 446, note. 

Problems of youth, 320-321; discussed, 
327-338; named, 325-326; points of 
contact between educator and edu- 
cand, 325; sources of information con- 
cerning, 321-323. 

Professeurs, teachers in a lycee, 88. 

Professions, secondary education a prep- 
aration for, 5 ; secondary education 
preliminary to preparation for, 6. 

Program of studies. College de Guyenne, 
Bordeaux (1572), 42 ; College de la 
Rive, Geneva (1559), 41-42; EngHsh 
grant school, 138-140; Eton, 127; 
Frauenschule, 119; French secondary 
schools, 80-85, 97-98; Gytnnasium, 109. 
High school: academic including house- 
hold arts, 630; of Commerce, New 
York City, 668-670; girls' technical, 
627; typical examples of, 216-219. 
Lyzeum, 118-119; Oberrealschule, in; 
Perse School, Cambridge, England, 128; 
Realgymnasium, no; Somerville, 628- 
629, 631-632; Sturm's at Strassburg 
(1565), 40-41 ; teachers' training 
school, Germany, 120; Worcester 
Girls' Industrial School, 625-626. 
See also Curriculum. 



786 



Index 



Programs of studies, now flexible, 746. 

Progymnasium, 108, iii, 112. 

Promotion by subject, daily roster for, 
177. 

Provincial Schnlkollegium, 103. 

Proviseur, headmaster, 88. 

Psychological age vs. physiological and 
"pedagogical," 248. 

Psychological phenomena of adolescence, 
257-272; pathological, 202-298. 

Psychology, effect of increasing knowledge 
of, on education, 745, 747. See also 
Adolescence. 

Puberty, vs. adolescence, 246 ; date of on- 
set, 247-248. 

"Public" schools, English form of the 
Latin Grammar School, 37 ; and 
public life, 1 23-131; Winchester, the 
oldest, 32. See also England. 

Public Schools Athletic League, rules of 
eligibility, 725. 

Quintilian, quoted, 27, 28. 

Reading, adolescent love for, 307-308. 

Realgymnasium, 49, 109, 113, 114, 116; 
weekly program, no ; and agricultural 
education, 674. See also Realschiile. 

Realistic schools, characteristics in Renais- 
sance-Reformation period, 44-45. 

Real progymnasium, 108, 112. 

Realschule, 47-49, 108, 114, 674. See also 
Realgymnasium. 

Recitation vs. class conference, 460. 

Recreation, and moral training, 334-336; 
socialized, 739. 

Reform Gymnasium, 113. 

Reforms in secondary education, 76, 746, 

753, 767-774- 

Regents' examinations, proportion of fail- 
ures, 202. 

Reisepriifung, 116. 

Religious aspects of adolescence, 285-292, 
275, note. 

Religious education, 347—353 (outlined, p. 
xix) . See also Moral education. 

Renaissance, effect in America, 54; influ- 
ence on secondary education, 4 ; in- 
terest in Greek, 415 ; methods of teach- 
ing art, 583 ; use of Latin, 387. 

Reorganization of education, forces now 
producing, 745 ; must attack aims 
first, 750-753 ; need of, to be under- 
stood only through a study of the 
evolution of present conditions, 11-13, 



755; that already accomplished, 746; 
that still to be accomplished, 746-747, 
756; final word upon, 774. See also 
Administration. 

Repetiteiirs, tutors, 91. 

Requirements for college entrance, see 
College entrance requirements. 

Retardation and acceleration, concept of, 
248-249; developmental, during ado- 
lescence, 292-294. 

Rhetoric, origin, 4; mastery of, a pro- 
fession, 5 ; change in content, 29, 30. 

Ribot Parliamentary Committee, 76. 

Richards, C. R., contributor, p. x. Indus- 
trial Education, 642-662. 

Richards, Mrs. Ellen H., quoted on neces- 
sity for teaching household arts, 623. 

Richter, Jean Paul, quoted on youth and 
age, 347. 

Ritterakademien, 44, 47. 

Robison, C. H., contributor, p. x. Agricul- 
tural Education, 671-679. 

Roman contribution to method, 27-29; 
view of secondary education, 5. 

Roster, daily, for promotion by subject, 
177-182. 

Rousseau, first to emphasize importance 
of adolescence, 9; quoted on adoles- 
cence, 246; on moral training, 317; 
a realist, 51. 

Ruediger, as to transfer of training, 304. 

Rugby, 124. 

Rural high schools, 149-154. 

Russi'in system of manual training, 661. 

Saint-Cyr, military school at, 439. 

St. Louis Manual Training School, 661. 

St. Paul's, English public school, 124. 

Salaries, England, 135, note; France, 91- 
92; Germany, 1 21-122; in Roman 
schools, 25; in United States, 214. 
See also Administration. 

School, a factor in education, 757, 758, 
758-759- 

"School City," 282-283. 

School life, as means of moral training, 338- 
339 ; work, as an instrument of moral 
training, 341-342. 

Schoolmasters' Association of New York 
and vicinity, 555. 

School plant, wider use of, 738-742. 

School population, England, 137 ; France, 
87, 98 ; Germany, 1 1 i-i 1 2 ; compara- 
tive statistics, including United States, 
140-141. See also Administration. 



Index 



789 



100 ; now abolished almost everywhere, 
746. See aho Administration. 

Tuskegee Institute, 678. 

Tutorial education, 45, 46, 50. 

Tutors, duties of French, 91. 

Twiss, G. R., contributor, p. ix, The 
Natural Sciences, 446-521. 

Types of schools, agricultural, 673—678. 
Industrial : apprenticeship, 654 ; corre- 
spondence, 653—654; evening, 647- 
648 ; manual training, 648-649 ; part- 
time, cooperating' with industries, 652- 
654; preparatory trade, 651-652 ; sec- 
ondarj'. technical, 655 ; technical, 648 ; 
technical high, 655-656; trade, 649- 
65I; 
American high, 219-220 ; High School of 
Commerce, 668-670; English, 123, 
131-132 ; French, 75, 95 ; German, 108, 
115-116; Greek, 22-24; Middle Ages, 
30-31 ; private, 233-243 ; Renais- 
sance-Reformation, 38-39, 46-49. See 
also Administration. 

Uniformity in secondary education, 146— 
148, 747-748 ; lack of, among German 
state systems, 102. 

Union School District, developed into high 
school, 63. 

■'Unit" in science work defined, 476. 

United States, agricultural education, 671— 
672 ; definition of secondary educa- 
tion, 71 ; early schools, 51-68; Greek, 
418-419; high school organization, 
172—229 (outlined, pp. xiv— xvi) ; high 
school systems, 146-172; household 
arts, 632-637 ; industrial education, 
646-658 ; Latin, 396, 398, 404 ; manual 
training, 660-662 ; modern languages, 
432-436; physical education, 702- 
703. See also Universal education. 

Jnited States Department of Agriculture, 
educational work, 672—673. 

Universal education, beginnings in America, 
55 ; effort to attain secondary, in 
United States, 67, 68; how obtained 
in high schools of California, 161 ; 
necessary in secondary education as 
well as in elementary, 14, 15; present 
demand for, 745 ; present situation in 
high schools, 148. 

University, influence on secondary educa- 
tion, 6. 

University Elementary School, of Chicago, 
660. 



Variability, characteristic of adolescence, 
248; of ideals during adolescence, 
291. 

Vernacular, as an element of cultural edu- 
cation, 767 ; socialized methods in 
teaching, 735 ; structural side of 
teaching the, 369-370. See also Com- 
position ; Literature. 

Virginia Mechanics Institute of Richmond, 
647.^ 

Visual aids, history, 564-565; Latin and 
Greek, 406-407; mathematics, 546- 

. 547- 

"Vital capacity," training to increase, 256. 

Vittorino, a tutor, 46 ; and the classics, 
344; and spiritual power, 347. 

Vives, on method, 43. 

Vocational education, analysis of aims 
needed, 761-762 ; conviction of its 
necessity, 746 ; definition, 759 ; past 
and present, 757; present demand for, 
734; the question of separate ad- 
ministration of, 773 ; in relation to 
moral training, 331-334; reorganiza- 
tion based on new aims, 769-770; so- 
cialized methods in, 735 ; scope, 624- 
632, 641-642. See also Agricultural 
education ; Commercial education ; 
Household arts education ; Industrial 
education; Manual training; Voca- 
tional schools. 

Vocational guidance, methods not yet sat- 
isfactorily formulated, 737; moral ef- 
fect, 333-334; necessity recognized. 
Grand Rapids scheme referred to, 201. 

Vocational power as an end of education, 
746. 

Vocational schools, private, 237-239; 

slow development in United States, 7 ; 

. suitable courses in history for, 558. 

See also Vocational education. 

Voice, changes during adolescence, 256; 

hygiene and training, 256. 

Wagner, Charles, quoted, on adolescent 
love, 337; on sexual purity, 336-337. 

Washington University and the St. Louis 
Manual Training School, 661. 

Weight, increase during adolescence, 250- 
252. 

WeDington, Duke of, and Waterloo, 124. 

Westminster, English public school, 124. 

Whipple, G. M., contributor, p. viii, Psy- 
chology and Hygiene of Adolescence, 
246-310. 



790 



Index 



Will, develops only through its own 
activity, 313-314, 320; finds exercise 
only in problems, 317-318, 320; in- 
fluences intellectual growth, 315- 
316. 

Williamson Free School of Mechanical 
Trades, 649. 

Winchester, 124. 

Winona Agriculture and Technical In- 
stitute, Ind., 678. 

Wissenschaftliche Prufungs-Kommissionen, 
104. 

Woman's movement, educational aspect of, 
15- 

Woodward, Dr. C. A., and the St. Louis 
Manual Training School, 660. 



Woodworth, R. S., on trancicr of training, 
303. 

Worcester Girls' Industrial School, 624-626. 

Workingmen's School of the Ethical Cul- 
ture Society, New York, 660. 

Workshop, a factor in education, 757, 758, 
760. 

Young, Prof. J. W., definition of mathe- 
matics, 529. 

Young Men's Christian Association, bicy- 
cling trips, 272 ; and technical in- 
struction, 647. 

Zest of life, 334-336. 
Zoology, see Biology. 



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It has been realized by the author that it is wiser to concentrate attention upon 
some of the problems of the secondary school and indicate their significance rather 
fully, than to compass all, or even a majority, of the questions that attach them- 
selves to our system of middle schools. He has subordinated all questions of 
method, of curriculum, to what has appeared to him the determining factor in a 
secondary school system, the fitness of the teacher for his task; the book has, in 
consequence, become an appeal to and for the teacher. It traverses many topics 
which other writers have found it necessary to elaborate into special treatises ; the 
value of these he does not disparage, though he thinks their appeal might often 
with profit be presented more compactly. 

In accord with this dominating thought, there have been added to the body of 
this book, besides two excursuses, a series of outlines on The Teaching of several 
subject groups in the Secondary School Course ; their object is to rouse the indi- 
vidual teacher to such study of his chosen field as will give him the widest possible 
survey of the questions involved in the presentation of the subject, 

CONTENTS 
Part I 



The Teacher. 



Part II 



Chapter I. The Present Status of the Public High School. 
Chapter II. The Private Secondary School. 
Chapter III. The Educational Policy of the Secondary School. 
Excursus I. The Continuation School. 
Excursus II. The Function of the Educational Expert. 
Appendix : Outlines for the Teaching of Certain Subject Groups in the Secondary 
School Course. 



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Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



Principles of Secondary Education 

By CHARLES DE GARMO 

Professor of the Sciences and Art of Education in Cornell University 

IN THREE VOLUMES 

Volume I. Studies. (^New and Enlarged Edition) j2mo, $i.2j net 
Volume II. Processes of Instruction .... i2mo, $i.oo net 
Volume III. Ethical Training ..... ismo, $i.oo net 

Volume I. — "In his treatment of the studies in secondary school 
instruction the various chapters deal with the Bases for Selection ; 
Classification of Studies into Convenient Groups ; Function and Rela- 
tive Educational Worth of the Studies and Study Groups ; and the 
Organization of Studies into Curricula. Under each of these subdivi- 
sions the treatment is exhaustive, lucid and fair, the author avoiding 
novelties and efforts at contributions, restricting the book to exposition 
and to argument that grows naturally out of analysis." — Edttcation, 
Review of Fwst Edition. 

The appendices of the first Edition have been omitted and six chapters upon 
" Basic Ideals for Educational Progress " added. These consider progress in 
education from the following standpoints: prosperity, health, general or cultural 
education, special or vocational education, eugenics and euthenics, and the recip- 
rocal relations that should exist between individuals and social groups. 

Volume II. — "The first section of the volume is devoted to an 
examination of the scientific basis for high school methods ; the three 
topics discussed are the acquisition of facts, the meaning of facts, and 
forms of solution for the problem. The second part treats of scientific 
method in high school instruction. . . ." — Atlantic Joiirnal of 
Education . 

Volume III. — "The author blazes a trail through ethical theory in 
order that the regulative principles of moral conduct maybe made clear 
and unmistakable to the young. 

" To secure the completest possible utilization of the agencies for 
ethical training now available to the American High School is the 
dominating purpose of the whole work." 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork 



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